Heart-Shaped Box
by landdownunder
Summary: Bella Swan has a tight bond with her sisters, a generous and loving father, and the beginnings of a great career. Grief and forced self discovery weren't supposed to be part of the package. A raw exploration of letting in love amongst loss. AH. Canon couples.
1. Chapter 1

**Heart-Shaped Box**

**A/N I have re-worked my one-shot and continued it beyond the original ending. Chapters are short and updates frequent.**

**I'm not going to beg for reviews every chapter, but as a part of my heart is in these words, I'd love to hear some of yours in response. Thank you in advance. **

**Twilight characters are Stephenie Meyer's. Some of what I've done with them in this story is simply based on fears; some is far less fictional than I'd like it to be. Let's see how that works out, shall we?! **

**Huge thanks to my beta HollettLA – credit to her for all the chapters that follow. Thanks also to TwirlGrll who beta'd the one-shot version of this.**

**-x-x-x-**

"_Grown ups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets."_

― _Roald Dahl_

**1 **

_Dear Rose,_

_Do you remember when we were very young and Renee was trying to teach us about tolerance? She was giving the old "everybody is different" lesson, and I always thought it was her way of explaining why she could be such a weirdo. Anyway, she did say something that stuck: that we all have little quirks that we carry as part of our character. She said some quirks were always with you and clear for all to see, like a nervous twitch or always looking down. Or how I bite my lip, or how you play with folds of fabric between your fingers when you watch TV. Others were hidden or developed with time, often as a response to things that happened to us. Like a superstition or a withdrawal from doing something. Anyway…_

_You know as well as I do that she wasn't particularly profound, but I do remember the day she told us this in the car on the way home from school. Renee's idiosyncrasies were difficult to describe to anyone outside the three of us (and maybe Dad of course), and I wasn't sure that she had just one. She's a more than complicated woman. _

_So the point of all this is that I've been thinking about a new quirk I've developed. The lip bite is still there, and I've probably got others, but the new one is a response to things that kept happening in my life. My new quirk is that I fucking hate boxes. Weird, right?_

_You know, to most people, a box usually held something special. If it required that sort of packaging, there was probably something good inside. They stored something that we treasured; they held something new that we'd bought; they contained a gift. New shoes, jewelry…good things, right? Not to me. Ditch the fucking packaging and give it to me straight. _

_I've decided that in my experience over twenty-five years, boxes haven't held good things. Not the ones that I remember, at least. I don't remember a new TV, new shoes, candy, or a great gift. I remembered the packing tape, the moving van, the ashes being handed over by the vet. A box for me meant somebody or something was leaving. They were moving away, or they were leaving completely. Recent events have only solidified that. My dislike has reached a new pinnacle._

_I can't believe I just saw you in a fucking box, Rose._

_Where's the fucking good in that?_


	2. Chapter 2

**Those of you who already had this on alert will need to go back to chapter 1 and read the new version before this. Thank you xx**

**-x-x-x-**

"_She is your mirror, shining back at you with a world of possibilities. She is your witness, who sees you at your worst and best, and loves you anyway. She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark. She is your teacher, your defense attorney, your personal press agent, even your shrink. Some days, she's the reason you wish you were an only child."_

_- Barbara Alpert_

**2**

It sounds odd, but my earliest memories of boxes were happy ones. My father Charlie thought it was a great game to push me down the carpeted stairs at our old house in a cardboard box. I'd laugh and shriek as the lip of each step bounced my bottom as it slipped across them, and then I would beg for him to slide me down again. In my bedroom, I had boxes of all kinds that held fabulous toys, and I remember putting together great creations and decorating boxes for festivals or storage at primary school.

The happiest times were always with dad or with my sisters. I was the youngest of three girls. Alice was in the middle, Rose was the eldest. I never understood people who had disjointed relationships with their siblings. Alice, Rose, and I had been impenetrably close. When someone said, "oh, you know, typical sibling issues," I didn't know. We didn't have issues. Sure, we'd have moments where one of us would be a bit snappy or nerves would be tested a little. Yet nothing ever blew up to the point of fights, or not talking, or to anything we couldn't just say outright. I don't know what was different about us, but we just worked. I was lucky.

There were probably a few events as we grew up that had encouraged our unity. Our parental instability was a likely instigator, and there was a sense of _they may not be terribly normal, but at least we have each other_. Our bond had always been there, but I guess external pressure fastened it even more tightly.

Our "quirky" mother had something of a mid-life crisis, a good ten years too early, mind you. She met a man and left us. To her, it was as simple as that. _You're too young to understand_; _you'll move along easily because you're so young_. It was all lies. I understood most of it just fine. The part I didn't understand was how greatly love could apparently change. Renee had done her bit with this family, and now she was off on a whim. The first day, she just left with a bag, later a few boxes appeared around the house, covered in packing tape. Then one afternoon when I got home from school, I caught a small moving van driving away from our house. She moved to Phoenix, not down the road, or to the next town. Out of state.

As a result, my sisters had practically raised me. Charlie was capable, yet there was only so much he could do with a pre-pubescent daughter. He needed to work to support his girls, as well as trying to find his own way as a newly solo father. I remember when it all happened, sticking my head out of my bedroom door to see him punch in the glass of a photo of Renee's side of the family that hung in our hallway. His knuckles bled as he wept a little. I had never seen my father caught off-guard and hurt by something in a way that crumpled his steadfastness. It seemed he hadn't seen Renee's disloyalty coming until the front door closed behind her. Poor Charlie had married for life. He had established what he had seen as something solid and beautiful. Renee had managed to rip the woven silk rug out from under his feet and left him sitting in shock on the wooden floorboards. Given that I had seen that happen to my father, a man I had nothing but respect and admiration for, it was only natural that many would diagnose me as holding some underlying resentment for my mother. Truthfully, it was the way she followed this up that really cemented the cracks in our relationship. Ravines would become a more appropriate word than cracks.

The seven- and nine-year age gap from me to my sisters clicked into play, and Alice and Rose started to fill a mothering role in my life. Rose had recently started at the local college. Looking back, I think she sensed that something was going to happen with Renee and delayed her intended move to Seattle just in case. Although Rose decreased her workload so she would be around a bit more, a lot of the household responsibilities fell on Alice's shoulders during her final year of school. My sisters were the ones who did my hair for school, packed my lunches, and made sure I had done my homework. Charlie was by no means neglectful or absent – far from it – it was just the way things adjusted to be.

My sisters were not simply my siblings; they played a pivotal role in the woman I had become today. I was more who I was because of them than because of my mother. To Renee, I was still ten years old, a child who knew little of the world and could never understand her reasoning and actions for anything she did. My sisters knew better; they knew that I could read her well. They also knew every tear, every success, every failure, what made me laugh, and when not to push me. They knew what she should have known.


	3. Chapter 3

"_One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be family."_

― _Jonathan Safran Foer, __Everything is Illuminated_

**3**

I hoped that Rose knew how grateful I was for anything that she sacrificed over those years. I never got the impression that she resented me for being somewhat dependent at the time I was left without a mother, but it still worried me. They told me later that while Renee was not always terribly present when she did things with them growing up, at least she was there. She may have been late and forgetful and a little crazy, but she was still technically around for ballet recitals and high school stressors. They knew that it would be harder for me, with the complete absence of that in my life. Sure, I had missed out on some things, but to my mind, what my sisters gave me was so much more. It was not a duty; it was never asked of them. They helped me find my independence and an ability to stand on my own two feet with confidence. I didn't need a mom to hold my hand at every twist and turn, but I still had two sisters to go home to who would give me a hug when things went wrong, and then say _now, be a big girl and get over it._

After my parents' separation, the divorce meant that we had to sell and move from the family home in Forks, Washington. Renee had largely lived off Charlie's income, and now she wanted half of everything to get herself established with her new boy toy. Our life as we knew it got split in two. While Charlie was fairly passive in the whole mess, they still couldn't settle on buying out the other's share, so basically everything got sold.

Once the homesickness abated, I saw that some good did come out of the move to Seattle. Charlie got a fantastic job with the Seattle Police due to his successful role as chief of police in Forks. It paid amazingly well, allowing him to get re-established comfortably after the divorce. In the year before the move, Rose had made the wise decision to attempt to progress her life and had finally moved colleges to the University of Washington. She was much happier knowing we would now be in the same town as her, coming to live at our new house with us to help her in saving for her own place. It only took six weeks before her boyfriend of seven months had moved in too. Emmett instantly clicked as if part of the furniture, and Alice and I could have sworn we'd always had a big brother.

Ten years later, Rose had her own place with Emmett a block away from Charlie's and had become Mrs. McCarty. When I finished high school, Alice had moved in with a handsome, charming Southern man who lived across the street from us. Every morning for six months she had shared a smile with Jasper Hale at the corner store, buying coffee or a newspaper or a fresh loaf of bread. One morning he was sitting at the table by the entrance with her coffee of choice and her favorite indulgence, a fresh pastry, on the table there in front of him. From that day on, they walked together in the mornings, discovering they had been through college at the same time, taken two of the same classes, and that Alice had done the interior design of the bar and restaurant that Jasper now co-owned. He proposed within nine months.

I finished my studies in literature and film at the University of Washington and had managed to land myself a sort of internship with an Oscar-winning screenwriter as prize for coming top in my screenwriting class with an A+ screenplay. I had found a talent, and good fortune was bestowed on me once again. As a result of a successful relationship with my advisor, he recommended me to a studio, and I was asked to work collaboratively on my first film. The author of the book in question was impressed and appreciative of the depth of knowledge I displayed for her writing. I was one of the youngest people to be given such a role when it was not their own story that was being developed. I had no idea where it would take me, but the initial experience was priceless.

I had just turned in the first version to the studio when the exciting path ahead of me seemed to crumble at my feet.


	4. Chapter 4

"_They knew in what they called their hearts that one can get on quite well without a mother, and that it is only the mothers who think you can't." _

– _J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan_

**4**

The week before our world imploded, the family had come together to celebrate my nephew's christening. We weren't actively religious but had all been christened as babies, and my sister and brother-in-law saw it as simply giving their son a choice. It was mostly a beautiful day for celebrating that he was now in our lives.

My mother didn't show until we were back at Charlie's house for lunch. She was always full of excuses. First she said she didn't even think she had been invited in the first place, and then she said she had the day wrong and remembered at the last minute, and then it was that she had been _so busy_. She was always _so busy_. Doing what exactly, I never knew.

I was talking with Emmett's mother Jude when Renee joined us. She didn't mind that she interrupted Jude mid-sentence, she bowled up and started gushing away to the poor woman about _Renee's_ _beautiful family _and _oh, Rosalie reminds me so very much of me as a mother_. She always found a way of reverting everything back to her. Always. It was possibly her worst trait, because it meant she never truly heard what was being said to her. She never connected with the person speaking. Not to mention that she also never took a breath, and if she let someone else get a sentence in, she was simply in her own head about to speak again. _Oh and Alice is so creative_ – she couldn't name exactly what it was Alice was doing at the moment – _oh and that husband of hers, Jacksper, so handsome!_ It was all babble in my ear, as I stood there staring at Jude's awkwardly stunned face in pity. She didn't mention me; she didn't even know about the screenwriting.

"Jasper, Renee, it's _Jas_per," I muttered.

"What was that, Isabella?" she said, pausing from her monologue.

"Nothing, Mother," I said, with a forced smile.

"Don't be facetious, darling. It's not very becoming," she said, as if she knew me well enough to know what was becoming on me. I don't think she knew what the word facetious meant, she just knew to use it.

"Jude, I think Emmett is trying to get your attention in the kitchen," I said, taking my mother's distraction as an opportunity to give Jude an escape route.

"Thanks, honey," she replied, a mix of gratitude and pity in her eyes. "I'll catch up with you, Renee."

"That was terribly rude, Bella. I was having a lovely discussion with Mrs. McCarty," Renee reprimanded.

I didn't feel like biting my tongue, my filter with my mother getting thinner by the day.

"You can't just claim us when you want to, Renee. When it's convenient for you to be a fantastic mother and have these lovely daughters to brag about," I said through gritted teeth.

"That's not fair," she replied, clearly sorry for herself once again.

"I'm not sure we have the same understanding of the meaning of the word 'fair'," I muttered, before moving away to find the bundle of joy that was Ben. You always forgot the world when you were around that little munchkin.

I didn't know whether it even made me sad anymore, my relationship with my mother. Or lack of one as the case may be. I almost had a disaffected attitude toward her. I suppose that alone was sad, but it was certainly the way things were headed. Despite my attempt at indifference, she had still managed to make me cry a couple of times recently. That only further spurred a desire to maintain a blasé approach, because what was the point in wasting my energy caring when I only ended up hurt or disappointed? She never changed. She never would.

I remembered crying into my pillow as a teenager the night after she had forgotten my birthday. She was once again _so busy_. She said she didn't forget it, she had just lost track of time and forgotten to call. I thought that was basically the same thing. As my mascara smudged into my white pillowcase, I felt terrible for wondering what I would do if my mother was to die. I knew that I would be sad, but in what way? Would most of my sadness be out of regret for not having ignored all her rubbish, all her intricacies and "quirks," and just gotten along with her? Would I be sad for what I had missed, or sad for what _she_ had missed with me? Would I feel guilty for anything? I had thought that it all sounded easier in theory; that it took two of us putting in equal effort for us to have a decent relationship. It wasn't simply a decision I could make. Would I feel that soul-destroying feeling of regret? Was I a selfish, horrible daughter for wondering such things at all?

I always found my feelings for Renee very difficult to voice. Most of the people I would try to explain it to had good relationships with their mothers, and it seemed as though I was instantly in the wrong for speaking so negatively of the woman who had given birth to me. But what they didn't know was that even to Renee, the parenting had pretty much stopped after the baby years. To the point that Rose as a twenty-two year old called Renee to get a payment for my school fees – she wouldn't speak with Charlie that week – and was told something that would unfortunately stick with all of us. Even at thirteen I'd had the eye to notice her excessive spending on things she didn't need, nor could she afford. _I've done my time as a mother, now I'll go out and buy a pair of shoes if I want to. _Needless to say, Charlie had to foot the whole bill that semester, and the rest.

I used to say that I loved my mother; I just didn't like her very much. I think I used to like her, but there was a point at which that was challenged. It had been challenged extensively recently, and I had started to wonder if the love part was a partial cover for those who would question me otherwise. _What sort of cold person doesn't love their mother? _I was at my worst toward her not when she hurt or frustrated _me_, but when she did something to upset one or both of my sisters. She had been particularly disappointing with Rose when she became a mother herself. Renee had an uncanny ability to turn up to stay under the guise of helping but do absolutely fucking nothing other than disrupt, upset, cause drama and stress everybody out, all from her spot on the couch. The worst bit was she had no fucking idea she was doing all of those things. Her brain was a mystery and not at all in a good way.

The whole thing was made more confusing because she was both difficult to love and difficult to hate. Amongst the chilly, dark nights left waiting when she was late for ballet pick-up, the events ruined with drama from her or her asshole boyfriend, or general moments of utter selfish ignorance, there had been those few moments of motherly brilliance. The problem was they were so on her terms that they were never times when we really could have used a mother, like for Rose when Ben was born. Instead there was that one surprise visit when she turned up on your doorstep with a cake on your birthday, after saying that she couldn't be there. Or when she dropped off drugs when you were sick or came to take you shopping for prom. Those moments were harder and scarcer to pick out of the memories, yet amongst all the unreliability and sadness, there was still potential for another successful moment of mothering. So we did our best to tolerate, and as sisters we took solace in each other.

Then suddenly, there were bigger things in the world than my troubling but seemingly petty issues with my ignorant and absent mother. We were in a place where the joy in our lives was overshadowing the heartaches of the past. Then in a blinding flash of total horror, I had a tiny nephew without a mother, a brother-in-law missing his other half, a father crumpled by the loss of one of his stars.


	5. Chapter 5

"_At the temple there is a poem called "Loss" carved into the stone. It has three words, but the poet has scratched them out. You cannot read loss, only feel it."_

_- Arthur Golden, __Memoirs of a Geisha_

**5**

Rose was killed by a drunk driver. She had baby Ben in the backseat. Emmett, the man she'd loved for fifteen years, was following her home. He saw the whole thing.

That night they'd met up at a charity dinner for Emmett's company in separate cars. Emmett came from work, Rose from home. Ben was only eight months old and slept like a trooper, so he was easy enough for Rose to just take with her that night. He was dozing in his baby seat throughout, oblivious to the ogles and cooing, and he stayed asleep during the car ride home. I prayed he was still asleep and far too young to process the horrific feeling of being t-boned through an intersection by the selfish asshole who thought driving home wasted was a great idea. By some small miracle, Rose's car came to a stop just before it would have collided with a lamppost, right in line with Ben's car seat.

Rose was a beautiful mother. It took two miscarriages before she conceived Ben. I couldn't believe when she felt like she should apologize for the first one. I had been excited to be an aunt for the first time, but it was crazy that she thought she had disappointed us when it didn't work out, like she could have done anything to prevent it. She almost gave up after the second. It was so disheartening for her, trying so hard for something she really wanted, only to be told that something had gone wrong. Alice and I gifted them a vacation in San Francisco for their wedding anniversary, hoping that the time away would do her good, and five weeks later, she had confirmation of her pregnancy with Ben.

I knew something had happened that night, even before my phone rang. Alice and I sent each other a text message simultaneously. _Something isn't right. _Not five minutes after, a policeman spoke to me from Emmett's cell. I learned afterwards that Emmett had hit dial and thrust it towards him. _Get my sister here_. The officer's words haunted me for weeks. _There's been an accident. I'm sorry. You need to come to the hospital_.

The worst phone call I'd ever had to make was the one to Alice. We didn't have a lot of detail yet, but the premise itself was enough. She took the job of calling our parents. For the first time Renee didn't hesitate and said she would get the next available flight from Phoenix. Charlie was off-duty and Alice was going to pick him up with Jasper. I called Emmett's family for him as I ran across the hospital parking lot. They had to get a flight up from their vacation in Hawaii. There was this window of time where it was a scramble to get hold of everyone, and then I was bursting through the doors of the ER department. The look of Em's blood-smeared face as he came in through the ambulance bay spoke instantly of how bad this was going to be.

As much as they tried, Rose was gone. The doctors told us as we stood in her hospital room that it was likely that she didn't feel much pain. The internal injuries killed her quickly. There was too much damage; they were fighting a losing battle as soon as the paramedics brought her through the doors. _Do you want to harvest any organs?_ _We think that only the lungs are viable; it may have been too long for the heart_. The actual dying was only one part of it. I never imagined all of the questions, decisions, and vast, vast emotions that came along when you lost someone so close.

"She was a donor," Charlie mumbled.

"Not her heart," Alice said.

"No, not her heart," I echoed.

It didn't seem right talking about her like that when the machines where still inflating her chest as if she were breathing. It was a cruel deception that made it hard to believe the reality of what the medical professionals were telling us.

"It's okay, just the lungs, if you all agree," the doctor said.

I got a tiny nod out of Emmett when I squeezed him. I nodded to the doctor that we all agreed. It was what Rose would have wanted.

"I'm sorry, but we'll need to take her now then, before it's too late," he said, already making a move, my mind ticking over as I watched.

_It _is _too late_. _If it _wasn't _too late, Rose would still be here. You all keep saying __sorry__. What _exactly_ are you sorry for?_

Through the glass to the next emergency room I could see them attending to baby Ben. Now that this decision had been made, my attention had to return to him. He shouldn't be alone.


	6. Chapter 6

"_If you gave someone your heart and they died, did they take it with them? Did you spend the rest of forever with a hole inside you that couldn't be filled?"_

_- Jodi Picoult, __Nineteen Minutes_

**6**

Dr. Cullen was the surgical resident at the hospital on duty with pediatrics the night my nephew and sister were brought in. He looked genuinely happy when Ben started screaming with tears. He was a good baby and never much of a crier. Dr. Cullen introduced himself and explained he was happy because, in this case, crying was good. Crying was alive.

They moved him from the ER to the pediatric ward where they put him in a crib, his tiny chest attached to monitors so they could keep watch of him overnight. I told my family I would stay, and the nurses moved a rocking chair right next to him so I could be close while he slept. Jasper took Alice and my father home to change and collect clean clothes for Ben and Em. His onesie had been discarded on the ER floor, covered in blood that had transferred from Emmett after he had tried in vain to get Rose out of the car. Em came and went as he waited for Rose to finish in surgery. He hovered outside the doors to the surgical rooms, wearing tracks into the linoleum as he tried to remain as close to his wife as possible.

Time deserted me as I watched my nephew. I couldn't shake the image of when I first saw him resting on Rose's chest in this very same hospital. The sight of his tiny lungs moving as they worked out how to take their first breaths. I couldn't believe that the little prince had very nearly taken his last eight short months later.

Some time in the early hours of the morning, Dr. Cullen came in to check on him, and then moved around to my side of the crib with something in his arms.

"Miss Swan? Sorry to bother you," he said quietly. His voice was kind and gentle. "Your sister is back in the room now; your brother-in-law is with her. We'd rather leave him be for a while" he said, standing in front of me. I didn't respond, so he continued. "These are your sister's belongings." He took the black plastic lid from underneath the box and put it on top.

"Don't close it!" I almost shouted at him. I took a breath, knowing I would have startled him with my outburst. "Her things shouldn't be shut away as if no one needs them anymore," I muttered, trying to explain myself. I sounded like a crazy person. I figured I was allowed a moment of crazy when my sister was somewhere in this hospital without lungs.

"It's okay," he said softly, "I understand."

Mid-morning a nurse came and said that they needed to take my sister away now. Dr. Cullen was doing his rounds at the time. He said that Ben should be cleared for discharge in an hour, but he'd sit with him while I was away. Downstairs, I watched as Charlie helped Emmett up from the chair where he had maintained vigil since Rose returned from her organ donation surgery. Her lungs had gone to a lady only six years older than her. She had four young children and had a disease that was diagnosed as terminal. She would have died within months without a lung transplant. _It looks likely that your sister has saved a life. _It was a gift that came out of our sorrow, but it still hurt. I wondered if I was selfish. _Not the right life. I'd rather I still had Rose._

All Alice and I could manage was to cling to each other as we cried alone next to her bed. When the time came to walk out of that God-awful room, I found I didn't know how to say goodbye, so I didn't. How do you say goodbye to your big sister for the very last time?

That was another question I didn't have an answer for.


	7. Chapter 7

"_When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time—the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes—when there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she's gone, forever—there comes another day, and another specifically missing part."_

_- John Irving, __A Prayer for Owen Meany_

**7**

Emmett was in shock, stoic, and defeated. He had bruising across his chest from the force of the seat belt when he braked to avoid the accident in front of him. He was fortunate he hadn't come away with more severe injuries. Not forgetting the severity of damage to his heart and everything connected to it. I don't think he was at the point yet where he realized it was important he had avoided the crash and survived for his son. At this stage in grieving, I was pretty certain he wanted to be dead.

He didn't know what to do with himself, let alone with tiny Ben. I went back to Charlie's from the hospital that afternoon, packed a bag, kissed my dad, and turned up on the doorstep of what had been my sister's home. When Em opened the door to me, I saw his shoulders visibly droop with relief. He stood to the side and I walked through, placing my bag down in the foyer. I watched as he turned the lock before I moved toward him, standing on my tiptoes to reach up and hug his tall frame. We didn't speak; I simply broke our embrace and went through to warm Ben's bottle. As I passed him on my way to the stairs, his son in my arms, he opened his mouth to say something, but his eyes said it all.

"You don't owe me any thanks, Emmett," I whispered. "We were sisters…this is simply what we do."

I had spent a lot of time helping Rose since she was near full-term in her pregnancy and still working. My income through college was from a job as a nanny, so helping my sister with her newborn came surprisingly naturally to me. I was eternally grateful now that I had spent so much time hanging out with her and Ben, even if I had only been there to have company while working away on my laptop. It meant that I could now step in to help Emmett with little worry that we weren't doing things how Rose would have. The little guy needed as much consistency as possible at this time, and thankfully, it was the one thing we could attempt to give him, short of giving him his mom back.

Emmett's parents arrived shortly after me. Once Jude McCarty had made sure Emmett was sedated and asleep later that night, they decided to check into a nearby hotel. She was reluctant to leave me, but I promised I'd be okay. If I was being truthful, I didn't know that, but I did know that Ben was keeping me okay for now. If I focused on him, I didn't have to focus on reality. They promised to be back first thing, thanking me for finding the strength to be there. I told them that Emmett would need them, so I was thankful they were there too.

Alice brought Charlie over the next day so that we could all be together. The funeral director needed to meet with us; the idea of that alone filled me with a nauseous dread. I wasn't sure how we would make a collective decision about what should define Rose and her life when those who knew her came to "pay their respects." Alice and I stayed side by side. I'd care for Ben when he was awake, and when he slept, we would let ourselves cry together. We couldn't find the words to talk about it yet. We just held each other and hoped that eventually it would be enough. In those hours, we stayed away from the rest of the family as much as possible. They didn't need to be burdened with the extent of our grief along with their own.

Over the past few years, I had been hesitant to move into my own place, staying at home with Charlie right through college. I didn't want to leave him to live alone, the last child to fly the nest. Recently though, he had been seeing a lovely lady named Sue and getting out with friends to go hunting or for a drink instead of just working. Sue and Alice stepped in to help out after the accident, making sure he had company and something on the table at meal times, even when he wouldn't eat. When Emmett came into Ben's room and asked me if I'd move in to the spare room indefinitely, I felt comfortable saying yes. Emmett never asked much of people; so asking me this was a telling admission. Charlie would be okay without me, and he was just around the block to visit each day. My nephew needed the next closest thing to his mom until his dad was ready.


	8. Chapter 8

"_Grief is a house where no one can protect you_

_where the younger sister will grow older than the older one_

_where the doors_

_no longer let you in or out."_

_- Jandy Nelson, The Sky is Everywhere_

**8**

They called it a coffin or a casket, but really it was just a glorified fucking box. It got burned in its entirety or buried in the ground, taking with it a small piece of all the people left behind on land, grieving for what it contained.

The afternoon before the funeral, our family gathered at the funeral home where Rose was resting. We all spent some time with her in turn and finalized plans for the following day. If it was at all possible, she still looked beautiful. It wasn't really her; her life, vibrancy, and rosy cheeks weren't evident in the pallor that death had washed over her. You could faintly see where the mortician had touched up her head wound; other than that, you would never imagine the trauma she had experienced. She was such a natural beauty in life; it would have been an injustice to see her heavily made-up in death.

Alice came in when I was sitting with Rose, just as I was touching the cold finger that held the Russian wedding ring the three of us all wore. The three interlinked bands represented the three of us, rose gold, yellow gold, and white gold marking us as individuals who would always be connected. We had laughed about being totally cheesy with our symbolism, but that cheesiness was easily overcome by the fact that I loved having that small link with her. She would be buried with that ring and her wedding band in place. We'd taken off her engagement ring to keep for Ben.

"I'll never forget the Christmas she bought us those. It was so perfect; she tried to make out that it was no big deal, but underneath…" Alice said softly.

"She was always the most emotional of the three of us when it came to crying at movies, TV commercials, other people crying…yet she often managed to appear disaffected in family situations. It was transparent though. She would just get a little abrupt, and you could tell that she was trying to mask her feelings," I said with a slight smile.

"She'd certainly show hints of being a Scorpio at times." Alice gave a little giggle. "She'd be the light of the room one minute, and the next she'd be so damn feisty." Alice paused. "The boys thought we were such wrecks when we all blubbered with happiness when we put our rings on that day," my sister said, looking at the open coffin.

We sighed in unison and sat quietly. It was a different sigh to the ones I was used to – a sigh so laden with an untamable sadness.

"I'm not going to remember her this way. This isn't Rose. I'm going to remember the snappy bitch and the soppy sentimentalist and the fucking gorgeous angel who completed us."

Both of us cracked and the tears spilled over. I had no idea a person had the capacity for so much crying.

"I want to speak tomorrow. I think we should try," Alice whispered as we stood to leave.

"I do too. It wouldn't feel right just sitting there. It's just that it terrifies me," I replied.

We were incredibly anxious about whether or not to stand up in front of all those people. We knew that our chances of getting through without stuttering or blubbering were slight. Later that evening when we were back at Charlie's for a nightcap, it was Jasper who settled our worry.

"It's your day, girls. It's for you to celebrate her. If anyone was to chastise you for showing your emotions, then they shouldn't be there. I don't care if I can't understand a thing you're saying. If you can get up there and even come close to achieving what you want, then I take my hat off to you."

He was absolutely right, of course. Jasper was good like that.

I always thought brave was something that kids were told they had to be, and they wondered what it meant but knew it implied that when something sucked you just had to toughen up for a moment and get through to the other side. It was an adult's way of saying "Kiddo, you gotta do this, so I'll mask it by making you feel better about yourself if you do." I didn't think the term brave was used much after you turned about eighteen.

How wrong I was.

Brave wasn't a scraped knee in the playground, or getting a shot at the doctor, or having to perform in front of your gym class. Brave resurrected itself later on to show you what it really meant. Mid-twenties, early thirties, late fifties: bravery still required.

Brave was your sister in her yellow dress against the white satin inlay of a coffin. Brave was facing the insurmountable terror of her funeral. Brave was trying to work out how the hell you were going to live without seeing her every day.

That night I prayed to a God I wasn't sure I believed in, hoping that someone out there would help me to be brave.


	9. Chapter 9

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"_I remembered back to Leo's burial and holding your hand. I was eleven and you were six, your hand soft and small in mine. As the vicar said 'in sure and certain hope of the resurrection of eternal life' you turned to me, 'I don't want sure and certain hope I want sure and certain Bee."_

_- Rosamund Lupton, __Sister_

**9**

The morning of her funeral dawned with a light mist over the city. I tried not to let the new, unfamiliar part of my mind that was a sister missing her sister read too much into that. _An eerie presence reminding us she's here?_ I was just thankful that it wasn't raining. _Don't make the sky cry too, Rose. _

I went through Rose's closet and picked out a beautiful black knit sweaterdress that she had loaned me once before. She had joked that her wardrobe was hopeless to her since she had been pregnant, and that I may as well claim anything I wanted and she would start afresh. It was ridiculous of course; she had been back to her enviable figure within months. Pulling the dress down over my waist that morning, I was comforted by the feeling of her enveloping me. I breathed in the fabric and was warmed by the faint hint of her familiar perfume that would be with me for the day ahead. I wished it were the real thing, standing next to me.

I had been to the funerals for all four of my grandparents. They were sad and emotionally challenging, partly because I hated watching my parent's emotion at the loss of their mother or father. My "favorite" grandfather had been last to go. Charlie's dad was the greatest man who ever graced the planet. Calm, humble, gracious, wise, and loving. They didn't make men like him anymore. When the representative for the army played _The Last Post,_ it totally crumpled my resolve, the haunting trumpet causing tears to roll steadily down my cheeks. I could never listen to that song without my emotions taking over.

This day felt both familiar and so very different. The people who had known Rose filled the large church, with an overflow pouring into the courtyard outside. I was grateful to all those who had come to say their farewells and give support, yet I couldn't help but feel that our small group of immediate family were all that mattered as we walked down the aisle to our seats at the front. This had happened to us in a way that it hadn't happened to others. I was inside my own bubble that I had stretched out to surround and protect my family, in the hope that it would make me more resilient to get us through this. Tactics would be pointless. I was at the whim of grief, and grief was a strange, horrible, and untamable force of nature.

The reverend who conducted Ben's christening led the service and began by speaking generally of Rosalie Lillian McCarty. Our long-time family friend Billy Black spoke on behalf of my dad. He told the lovely stories of Rose that none of us could manage to share that day, adding the personal touch of someone who knew us all well. His twin daughters were in the row behind us, and his son Jacob reached forward to give my shoulder a squeeze when his dad spoke of our visits to La Push, near Forks. The reverend said something about time for reflection, and my mind checked out while listening to the soulful voice of Chrissie Hynde as she sang _Hymn to Her_. With my head resting on Charlie's shoulder, the resounding words were so real to us in that moment that I couldn't help but believe that what she sang was true. Rose was a true 70s baby. Alice and I didn't have a problem with filling the church with her varied and bizarre taste in music.

As the song faded out, Alice stood, held her hand down to me, and gave me a look of hesitant encouragement. I moved to face the crowd, standing next to my sister's coffin, my other sister firmly planted next to me with her hand around my waist. I saw no faces. It was just me, Rose, and Alice up there. We had decided she would speak first, as we thought my part was more likely to cause us to break down. She spoke clearly and slowly to begin with.

"The words of The Pretenders carry such truth for my family and me today. 'She will always carry on. Something is lost, but something is found. They will keep on speaking her name. Some things change, some stay the same,'" she paused, "We will keep speaking your name, Rose."

Her breath caught and she took a moment until she felt ready to continue with her reading.

"_Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped into the next room. I am I and you are you. Whatever we were to each other that we are still. Call me by my old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone, wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just around the corner. All is well."_

As soon as she finished the last line, she looked to me, the ache in her eyes urging me to embrace her. We stood wrapped tight to each other, ignorant of anyone else being near. With a last squeeze, we separated, keeping our hands entwined as I looked to my paper and began to speak.

"This was one of Rose's favorite authors, and she loved this poem since she learned of it in poetry class in middle school. Rose tried to live her life by these ideals, and today I read this on behalf of her. This is for her son, Ben.

_If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:_

_If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:_

_If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'_

_If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch; if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son."_

When I looked up, all I saw were glassy eyes and tissues.

As the service drew to a close I had the strange feeling of not wanting it to end. The finality was awful. I had done fairly well maintaining my composure until Lionel Richie's voice sounded through the building. I wished we'd gone with some stupid ABBA song like Charlie had said..

_Thanks for the times_

_That you've given me_

_The memories are all in my mind_

_And now that we've come_

_To the end of our rainbow_

_There's something I must say out loud…_

I knew that _Three Times a Lady_ meant that it was time to take her out. Emmett had decided this morning that he wanted to carry his girl, so he passed little Ben to Jude, who followed behind us with Renee. Then Emmett, his father Bruce, Charlie, Jasper, Alice, and I took our places alongside our wife, daughter-in-law, daughter, and sister.

Everything was wrong about that. Everything.


	10. Chapter 10

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"_Your coffin reached the monstrous hole. And a part of me went down into the muddy earth with you and lay down next to you and died with you."_

― _Rosamund Lupton, __Sister_

**10**

There is nothing that adequately describes the enormity of carrying the weight of that box out of the church towards the hearse. The sound of people breaking down even more so when it passes by them and the rustle of whispers. _Those poor girls; that poor young family; that poor baby boy will never know his mother._ Then there is the sickening, sickening moment when, as awful as the weight of it was, the absence of that weight when we place it in the back of the car is way worse. Putting it down and taking your hands away is a finality that rips you in two. There are no words that do justice to the pain of any of that.

Until you get to the part when the flowers have been placed on top, the driver pushes it in and closes the back, then switches on the car lights. That's when every sad story, every piece of emotive prose, every synonym, every word of empathy is obliterated, as the hearse begins to creep out of the driveway and we start to follow it. And it's not because we're supposed to out of protocol, it's because that damn car carrying that damn box sucks us with it like an unbreakable magnetic force. So I'm clinging to the arm of my brother-in-law, linked with my sister, and she's holding up my dad, and we follow that car out into the streets, dreading like hell the moment when it breaks away from us. And all we can hear is wailing and blubbering and sobbing. It doesn't feel like a dream, or a nightmare, or so bad that you feel like your body is there but the rest of you isn't. Those are misconceptions of people who have never felt what it's like watching your young, vital sister be taken away from you in a box. It feels far too fucking painful to be a nightmare or for your mind to be able to leave. It consumes you, holds you fixed to the earth, and screams at you to run the fuck after that car and never, _ever_ let it leave.

The burial was private, immediate family only. We needed the space to do this how we wanted to, with no pressure and no one watching. After they lowered my sister into the ground, we each selected a yellow rose tied with a black silk ribbon and dropped it down to her. Then Jasper passed me, Alice, Emmett, his parents, and Charlie each a black helium balloon tied on a yellow silk ribbon. Emmett held two, one for him, one for Ben. I looked up at them, dancing in the breeze, before I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned and saw my mother slowing making her way through the grass and headstones. With a sigh, I went over to the basket of flowers, collected a rose, and untied the last balloon from the handle. With my back turned, I took a moment to compose myself, before moving to meet Renee as she approached us. Without saying anything, I held them out to her. She paused, swallowing the enormity of what I was giving her, both physically and symbolically. She took them gingerly from my hands, giving a slight nod before following me back to the group. For once she didn't say anything. I looked at Ben in the crook of Emmett's arm, sleeping peacefully, before Alice broke our silence.

"These are for Rose, to follow her up to the heavens. They're bittersweet in so many ways. They bounce around in the wind happily, yet they're as black as our hearts feel right now. Rose was always classy and beautiful in black, yet always our bright, sunshine Rose. Bella and I weren't so sure when she first told us we would be wearing yellow at her wedding," she said with a stilted laugh. She sighed before continuing. "When I release this string and it flies away, it's not the same as releasing Rose, of letting her go. I'll never let her go."

I didn't want us to say any more, and I certainly wasn't going to say goodbye. Alice was right; we would never let her go, not fully. So I grabbed onto my sister even tighter, looked up at my balloon, and opened my fingers. Watching me, she did the same, sending the message to the rest of the family that we didn't want any definitive farewells.

Nine black balloons twisted up into the sky, their yellow trails painting the blue behind them. I wished I could feel that weightless – to feel like I was levitating a mere centimeter off the earth for even for a few short seconds.


	11. Chapter 11

"_The anguish I always feel when she's in pain wells up in my chest and threatens to register on my face."_

― _Suzanne Collins, __The Hunger Games_

**11**

In the days following, I was helping Emmett understand the routine Rose had so aptly formed for their baby. Rose always said that it was the routine that was the reason for him being remarkably content and easy. Emmett was a fantastic and involved father, but like most men, he hadn't fully comprehended the small details that were keeping his household operating. He understood pretty quickly that if Ben's routine remained unchanged, he would be less disrupted by the fact his mom wasn't the one doing things for him. Work gave him indefinite paid leave, a plus of being a highly valued part of his company, so with our support he was getting more comfortable being Ben's number one. Fortunately Emmett's mom had stayed in town after the funeral, and gradually Emmett was more willing to have her and other family around the house a bit more. Initially, he had just needed space and didn't want people waiting on him and checking on his every move. I guess it was his way of trying to find some normalcy.

At the time of our sister's death, Alice was pregnant with her first baby, seven weeks along. Only Rose and I knew, and Jasper of course. Her doctor thought it was likely the stress of the loss that caused her to miscarry a week and a half after the funeral. I started questioning everything. Where were fate, luck, and justice in all of this? Had we done something that was causing karma to give us the most severe kick to the guts that it could? Superstition held that bad things happened in threes. This was far worse than just bad, and there was no way that we could handle a third black card being dealt to us. I wondered if I should take up praying, but given what I knew of life and death, I doubted that it would do any good. Surely we'd had our lot.

After Alice called me with the news, I split my time between cradling my nephew and cradling my sister as she wept. I couldn't fathom what she was feeling. I felt useless. _Rose would have handled this better_. Through her sobs she tried to tell me how empty she was, that so much of her had been taken away all at once. _Rose would have known what she needed_. We didn't eat; we didn't talk much. We simply lay together and tried to take comfort in the contact. When Ben needed me, Jasper would take my place with Alice. I felt for him, dealing with his own emotions and not knowing quite how to get my sister through hers. I reassured him he was doing all that he could, he knew her well, but there was nothing that would take away her pain.

Alice asked me to accompany her and Jasper to her appointment at the hospital the following Monday. I was growing to considerably dislike hospital waiting rooms. The doctor called them in for the initial consultation and said that she would come out for me if Alice wanted me after the procedure. The change that had unconsciously occurred between my sisters and me over recent years was definitely more present now. I suppose the gap had begun to close once I left high school – the gap that originally had them fill the roles of guardian, advisor and protector had shifted, and our age difference now didn't factor in the way we related to each other. They had become simply sisters, confidants, and friends.

As I sat there mindlessly flicking through a magazine, a smooth familiar voice spoke in my direction.

"Bella?"

I looked up from the blurred pages to see Dr. Cullen. He had shown up to Rose's wake, where I recalled speaking to him briefly, but I had been pretty absent from myself that afternoon. _I felt compelled to be here_. _I hope you don't mind_. I hadn't really processed him before; he had been nothing but a blur from a time when I saw the world through puffy eyes and a heavy head. Somehow now, in my defeated emotional state, I was able to recognize that he had incredibly striking features. The greenest eyes I had ever seen were peering back at me.

"Is everything okay? How's the little man doing?" he asked, sounding genuinely interested.

"He's fine. Thanks, Dr. Cullen. I've moved in to Rose's to help out with him for the moment," I said, managing a small smile. He nodded.

"Please, call me Edward," he said, coming in to sit across from me. "What are you doing here? Don't take this the wrong way, but I hoped you wouldn't be back in this place for a long time."

"So did I," I replied.

"Can I help you at all?" he asked.

"No, I'm just waiting for Alice, she has an appointment with Dr. Stanley."

"Oh," he said, recognition evident in his tone.

"She, uh, had a miscarriage," I muttered, looking back to my magazine in an attempt to maintain my composure.

"Gosh, Bella, I'm so sorry you're back here so soon under those circumstances," Edward said softly.

I believed him; he was a very sincere man, and I just wished that people would stop having reasons to be sorry for me at the moment. The word was beginning to lose its effect.

Edward's pager went off, probably a welcome savior from my melancholy. I watched out of the corner of my eye as he performed the stereotypical move of tilting it on his waistband to read the text. I wanted to process him more, to think he looked hot in his scrubs, but I couldn't. My sister had just died. I was pretty sure grieving people didn't notice how nice looking the doctor was. I was glad he was leaving because I hadn't cried yet today, and I could feel tears building.

"Look, I apologize but I have to go…it's my day off tomorrow. Have coffee with me?" he said, studying my face.

I furrowed my brow, bit my lip and made an "err" sound, working out how to say no.

"I know you feel like you shouldn't do things like this right now, but you can. You need time for yourself, or you'll wear down completely."

I didn't know whether to get angry that he was trying to prescribe what I needed, or to concede because he was probably very right. I didn't have the will for anger, so I went with concession.

"Okay," I said softly.

He took my number before leaving me to attend to his patient. _What was I doing?_

I couldn't find the right emotion. Happiness wasn't okay.


	12. Chapter 12

"_Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield, upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite. Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and the rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody. But how shall I, unless you yourselves be also the peacemakers, nay, the lovers of all your elements?"_

_- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet_

**12**

Edward bought me a coffee from a café near Pike Place Market, and we took the paper cups across the road to a picnic table overlooking the water of Elliot Bay.

Coffee was my new drug of choice. It helped me get through the day with some small semblance of clarity, and when the nightmares woke me from any small amount of sleep I had gotten, coffee kept me from falling back under. I started to read and write a lot during the night, but I don't know what it was that I read or what words I had typed.

As he sat down on the wooden bench, I tried to focus my mind on Edward. I found it so easily wandered these days, between Rose, Alice, Ben…Charlie, who had let tears well in his eyes in front of me another time too many when I told him last night about Alice and Jasper's miscarriage.

I pushed the image aside as well as I could. Edward looked different out of the hospital fluorescents and pale blue scrubs. The scrubs were great, of course, but Edward in the daylight, away from the smell of disinfectant and the threat of death, this Edward was vibrant and all the more handsome. He didn't look so much like the man who had saved my nephew or seen my sister dead. He just looked like a man. I liked that he didn't carry those things with him.

"So do you take the aunties of all your emergency patients out for coffee?" I broached.

"Only the most memorable ones."

"Memorable for the tears and crazy stupor, and not for the tragedy of it all, I hope."

He glanced at me before looking away again.

"Bella, know that there's not much I can say today that won't seem to relate back to the way that we met. But I most certainly do not remember you for the tragedy of that night. That won't be what defines you or what defines us."

I didn't have anything to say to that. It was the most honest someone who wasn't a family member had been with me recently. We'd only been sitting there for five minutes, so he obviously wasn't going to waste time skirting around the dark clouds hovering over my shoulders. I sipped on my latte and watched a ferryboat head out from the wharf.

We were quiet for a while. It should have been horribly uncomfortable, yet it wasn't. He made me feel like I could say things I needed to say or ask questions I shouldn't ask.

"You must see a lot of death."

"It's an unfortunate side effect of the job, yes."

"Does it get easier?"

"For me to see in multiples, or for the families to deal with once?"

"Both."

"It never gets easier to witness, no. Every one is a punch to the gut. I'm just fortunate to be removed enough from the situation for the pain not to linger for too long. I can try to find a why or a how and resign myself not to let that happen again. The families of the patient don't get that luxury. Their punch to the gut basically wipes them out. From what I know, though…it gets easier. It doesn't mean it goes away. Each day just gets a little easier to breathe, a little easier to stand up straighter, and a little easier to smile without feeling like you shouldn't."

He understood. This blessed man next to me sipping slowly at his Americano and looking at his coffee cup, completely comfortable in his own skin. He understood my fear that none of those things would ever happen to me.

The circumstances of that day we met for a simple coffee were so fucked up. They were fucked up because I should have been able to call Rose. _A really gorgeous guy took me for coffee today. _We would have gotten excited, and she would have asked all the right questions to check if he was worthy and if I was serious. _We talked about death. We talked about how I was a depressed loony who may never smile again. It was super_. Then I would have called Alice and we would have done the same, before she called Rose and they would discuss their thoughts on their baby sister's potential relationship.

When I was removed from the surreal hour where things seemed okay on that picnic table, I was able to distinguish that potential relationships didn't come out of situations like this. The dark circles under my eyes had me looking like a zombie, and a good doctor had enough pity for me to apply coffee and company as medicine. Alice and Rose were the type who got to spend their lives with amazing men, not me. No doubt my second impression on Edward was as memorable as my first. I wasn't going to hold my breath for him to call again. Part of me hoped he didn't. He shouldn't concern or involve himself in a life that even I didn't recognize.


	13. Chapter 13

"'_Why did you do all this for me?' he asked. 'I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.'_

'_You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte. 'That in itself is a tremendous thing.'"_

― _E.B. White, __Charlotte's Web_

**13**

Despite his perfect words and the ease of his company, I still managed to underestimate Edward Cullen. My judgment was off at the moment, clearly. I had a valid excuse for my perception of anyone outside of my family being off. I was set to read them and their needs, and that was it for now. I couldn't even read myself accurately.

It started with the coffee and continued with phone conversations and a few texts. The phone calls went from brief catch-ups when he finished a shift to a long evening with a cup of tea before bed where I soon found myself willing to share what I was going through with him. I preferred listening to him talk about himself. It was a small but welcome escape.

Edward told me all about his family. His dad, Carlisle, had been a doctor as well. He had been massively successful and was highly regarded in the profession. He was now semi-retired, putting on his surgical cap for special cases and giving seminars at colleges and to medical boards. His mom, Esme, had been a consultant on interior design for one of the country's most successful architecture firms. She still did a bit of work in the Washington area. I wondered if Alice knew of her. He spoke highly of his parents, and I respected and admired that. I guess he spoke of them the way I spoke of Charlie.

"Do you see your parents a lot then? It sounds as though you're very close to them," I asked.

"Not as much as I'd like, actually. They built a second house on the Olympic Peninsula years and years ago, and when Carlisle retired, they decided to move there."

"Oh wow, whereabouts?" I asked, thinking of my childhood home.

"A little town called Forks," he replied, his tone implying its obscurity.

"You're kidding, I grew up in Forks…hold on...the big house in the woods a few miles out of town?"

"That's the one," he said. I could sense his smile through the phone line.

"I remember building finished on that place just before we left town."

That started the discussion about why we left Forks and a glossing over of my mother's departure.

Edward was right; talking a little more did help to ease the pain that haunted me every day. It would have certainly overwhelmed me otherwise. The reminders were constant. Ben would screw up his little face in a certain way and remind me of Rose, or I would be out or working and think of something and go to call her, then remember I couldn't. That had happened twice recently; both times I got so furious at myself, which resulted in angry tears. They always morphed into sad sobbing. I wanted to know how long it was going to be until I'd feel better. How long it would be until it got easier in the ways Edward suggested it would.

"The sentencing is at the end of next week."

He didn't ask me how I felt about it; he just waited for me to say more if I wanted to. I found myself wanting to.

"I spent a day last week so furious with that piece of shit that I wanted his life taken away from him as well. I didn't think rotting in prison was worthy of him. Because of course he won't rot, will he? He'll be comfortable and fed and rehabilitated for reintegration into society. And all of that just seems like a load of fucking bullshit. A mistake is a mistake, and he'll pay his dues, except that it's not a mistake when it results in someone fucking dying. People shouldn't have a chance to make a mistake like that. That makes you a brainless fucking asshole. So I keep bashing all of these thoughts around, and I can't reconcile any of it with the fact that my sister is gone. Wasting my time worrying about some meaningless punishment won't bring her back and it won't make me feel better. Fuck…I don't know." I sighed and pulled at my hair.

I heard Edward swallow into the receiver.

"Are you going to court?" he asked quietly.

"Dad's going to read a victim impact statement. I'm going to support him."

"I'll be there, Bella."

I didn't doubt him or dissuade him.


	14. Chapter 14

"_I do not mourn the loss of my sister because she will always be with me, in my heart," she says. "I am, however, rather annoyed that my Tara has left me to suffer you lot alone. I do not see as well without her. I do not hear as well without her. I do not feel as well without her. I would be better off without a hand or a leg than without my sister. Then at least she would be here to mock my appearance and claim to be the pretty one for a change. We have all lost our Tara, but I have lost a part of myself as well."_

― _Erin Morgenstern, __The Night Circus_

**14**

After she went back to Phoenix, my mother started off calling a bit more frequently. She sent a few more text messages than normal, requiring the usual three attempts to read her abbreviations. She would ask the odd question about me, or Ben, though after I answered, she never took it much further. It shifted promptly to her usual one-sided conversation. _The neighbors have been so helpful since I lost Rose. I don't know what I'd do without them_. I was at the point of just listening. I made _mmhmm _noises at the appropriate moments, though I doubt she even noticed. She had lost Rose, she needed help, she was in mourning. This hadn't happened to anyone but her. _Don't worry, mother, the two daughters still alive are doing just fine. Never mind your grandson. _

I hadn't heard from her in a couple of weeks. That had been normal before – she'd go months without talking to us, and when she finally called, the accusations were always the same. _You never call me. You're very hard to get hold of. Don't you care about your mother?_ Despite her professing otherwise, there were never any missed calls from when she'd supposedly tried to get ahold of us. I don't think she knew cell phones had caller ID. There were no text messages to check in with us. There was the occasional one to tell us about how she was _so busy, _or _a bit tired,_ or maybe how _we've had such good weather in Phoenix_. I had no fucking idea why the weather in Phoenix was so important, except that it meant _I could walk to the corner for my cappuccino. _

The drama was over for her, and she was back to what she knew. I didn't have the energy to resent her or judge her for the way she handled things. She appeared to me as a mother who lost her daughter over the time of the funeral, and I would never hold the way she managed herself at that time against her. In the aftermath, that compassion faded a little, back to my disaffected ways. She shouldn't have had to bury a child, any more than I shouldn't have had to bury a sister. I knew she must have felt the pain of that. What's more, for all I knew, perhaps she felt regret that she hadn't spent more time with Rose, rather than giving her life to a worthless asshole. Who knew what regrets or emotions she held, because she never managed to communicate them in a way that showed she was genuine, rather than simply being worried about what her shortcomings meant for her. She made the choices not to be there, but in her mind it was still _her _loss and _her _misfortune.

Her manner hadn't always been this way. Charlie never would have married her if he knew the person she would turn into. She wasn't a bad person; she just didn't have much grasp on consequence, foresight, or reality. But they married young, and Renee was an innocent young bride, bright-eyed for the devilishly handsome man who'd fallen in love with her. She had Rose at twenty, and the beautiful baby girl seemed to mask any shortcomings. I don't think either of my parents could deny that they were happy for a time. It was probably not long after they had me that Renee began to lose interest in being the mother and wife. My father always said I challenged her intelligence from when I was four years old. I wasn't a naughty kid, but a bond occurred between me and the rest of the family that Renee's growing distance didn't mesh with.

No matter where her mind was at the time, I could never figure out how a person could watch their three girls exist happily at home with the man who cared and provided for you for nineteen years, then walk out the door to go to "work," which actually meant "fucking another man." She carried on that way for a good six months before she came clean to Charlie.

We had always said that Renee never changed. After Rose, it became apparent she never would. Alice and I wondered if it might have been the one thing that might smack some sense into her. That she'd realize how stuck inside her own head she'd been for the past fifteen years or more. Instead it was confirmed that we were right to never expect anything from Renee. She didn't have any EQ – any perception for the emotion of others or an ability to read a situation and manage herself accordingly.

Alice didn't bother with letting Renee know about her miscarriage. It was telling of the lack of mother-daughter bond. She had what she needed around her with Charlie, Jasper, and me. I was reminded continually of how perfect Jasper was for my sister as I watched her pieces slowly fit themselves back together, one day at a time. He was simply magical. He didn't push her or cover her in cotton; he simply read her needs moment to moment to amazing accuracy. We were incredibly fortunate in the people that both Jasper and Emmett were. It could have been so much worse if those boys weren't so perfectly in love with my sisters and so very much a part of our family.


	15. Chapter 15

"_If you have a sister and she dies, do you stop saying you have one? Or are you always a sister, even when the other half of the equation is gone?"_

_Jodi Picoult, "My Sister's Keeper_

**15**

It scared me how time passed when you were terrified that you would miss something. We were fast coming up to two months when Alice and I finally went together to Jasper's restaurant one evening. He was going to play a set on his guitar and suggested we come and have some food. Alice and I hadn't been there for dinner since before Rose's death. It was our local, the three of us often meeting there once a week. It felt surprisingly okay being there again. It was one of those things Rose would have been angry with us for changing.

Something that had come out of learning more about Edward was the trivia that he and Jasper were old friends. Their parents were close, and the boys had gotten to know each other better when Carlisle transferred to a hospital in Texas for two years. Edward attended the same high school, and despite Jasper being a few years older, they had managed to keep in contact when Jasper moved to Washington for college. They had reconnected when Edward moved to Seattle after finishing medical school.

Jasper knew Edward and I had met for coffee and talked a little. He didn't pry or offer any advice though, to either of us. He was never one to interfere unless the situation required it. Not many would bite their tongue against a warning or suggestion regarding how to handle a grieving sister-in-law, but Jasper did. I think it was also because Edward hadn't mixed his involvement in that night with his rekindled friendship with Jasper. I suppose it tied him to us a little more than his regular patients, but he was honest enough to say that the friendship had played no part in his contacting me.

It turned out that not only was Edward well on the way to being a successful doctor, he was also a genius with an acoustic guitar. Alice and I sat there fairly spellbound by him and Jasper, as we got our fingers messy with Grandma Hale's old-fashioned chicken wings. We shared a few bittersweet glances, wishing the empty space in the booth was filled, but knowing that Rose would scold our distraction. _Get over it and enjoy listening to the nice boys making music._

Jasper left his restaurant partner, James, to close up that night so he could take Alice home. Edward asked if he could join me for a nightcap. He took my sister's place in the booth, the conversation flowing comfortably right away. It was refreshing, because so many people still treated me like there was something wrong with me. Like I might snap or break down if they said the wrong thing. _I read about your sister in the paper. You must be so fragile. Will you start crying if I hug you like I usually do? _I wondered if you could see her death on me. Did it have visibility on my surface in the way that I felt it underneath my skin?

As the night wore on and a bottle of wine disappeared, it hit me. I really liked this man, and I couldn't. I shouldn't. I didn't want to. I wasn't a "lucky" person anymore. I wasn't strong enough for this. I would hurt him or he wouldn't be able to cope with me and my messed up family. The idea of getting attached or losing someone again scared me.

He paid the bill and helped me into my coat, holding the door for me as we moved out into the street.

"Let me drop you home," he said, not a question. He knew it was only a couple of blocks to the suburb where all three of my family's homes were, but no responsible man left a girl to walk home in the dark. He was too good. He had his guitar case in one hand, the other in the pocket of his grey peacoat. I could see a glimpse of chest at the top of his navy button-down shirt. I squeezed my eyes closed then dropped my head to look at the pavement. _Fix this, Bella_.

I accepted his offer, and he held open the door of his black Audi wagon for me. I wanted to talk to him as we drove. To carry on the conversation from the restaurant about learning to play guitar as a break from his medical books. I wanted to know more. I wanted him to know me more. But it wasn't fair to him. I couldn't be what he needed. What he deserved.

I directed him to Emmett's driveway and found my tongue.

"Edward, thank you for all that you've done, your kindness toward my family, and your support of me," I said softly.

There was a beat of silence, and I knew he could tell something had shifted for me.

"But?" he questioned, perceptive enough to read that I was internally fighting with what I needed to say.

"But, I…I can't do this."

He was so good with finding the right words at the right time, I almost expected him to refute me. He simply sighed, and the sound of it managed to convey that he didn't believe what I had said. He didn't say so, though. Instead he shifted toward me, lifted my chin with a finger, kissed my cheek, and pulled back to let me leave.

I cried myself to sleep that night, and for the first time, it wasn't just for Rose or Alice. I told myself I was doing the right thing, that it would either end like my parents or it'd end like Rose. One or the other of us would get hurt, leave, or die. It was a pessimistic notion; I at least had the sense to know that. But it was hard for me to look at the world with rose-colored glasses. What right did I have to burden that busy, talented, happy man with _me_?

My angst and anxiety carried through to sleep, and I had the dream that had recently started haunting me if I'd had a particularly emotional day. In it I was following after Alice, trying to call out to her and get her to listen to me, and I'm so close to reaching her but I have no control. That's when she disappears. All that's left is a big, black box that I can't get in to.


	16. Chapter 16

"_Also remember, sisters make the best friends in the world. As for lovers, well, they'll come and go too. And babe, I hate to say it, most of them - actually pretty much all of them are going to break your heart, but you can't give up because if you give up, you'll never find your soul mate."_

_- Marilyn Monroe_

**16**

Emmett reluctantly went back to work on a part-time basis. He had to make an overnight trip to San Fran to close a deal that had been waiting for his attention since before the crash. I'd stopped calling it the accident. It wasn't a fucking accident. He'd then have the rest of the week off to deal with the sentencing.

It was just going to be Ben and me for two days. My film project was finally a go, and I had some edits to work on when he was napping. I had to go to Los Angeles next month for a week of pre-production meetings. They'd picked the filming locations of Bainbridge Island and Portland. A week in LA was going to be enough of a challenge so I was glad that the months of shooting were nearby. I wouldn't have to be there very much, but I'd be on call if something wasn't working or needed changing. Fortunately my mentor and the author had helped my first real screenplay along, so the studio seemed confident that we had it right. I wasn't ready to decide where my career was going to go from here. The opportunity had been a fluke.

I sat down on the couch with a cup of coffee to watch Ben on the floor with his blocks. I soaked up everything he did, both so I could tell him when he was older, and for Rose. I could see her so clearly with him; hear her words of hopes and joys and little troubles. _I can't wait to chase him around the park. I can't wait to give him a sibling_. She was missing this; the least I could do was pay perfect attention to what made Ben, Ben. It scared me that I hadn't seen her smile or heard her laugh for three months. It was permanently ingrained in my memory, yet still I worried I would forget it.

I dug out her wedding DVD and put it into the player. She was so fucking beautiful. We were always told the three of us looked very much like sisters but I tended to think that our parents got the recipe right with the first two. Rose was probably most like Renee's side of the family, and the fairest. I was the darkest and, though still short, I had more of Charlie's height than Alice, who was petite and quite striking. "The Swan Sisters" were fairly well known when Alice and Rose were both at high school. I was the little sister who their guy friends teased them about, claiming I was going to be trouble once I hit puberty.

I smiled at shots of us in our bridesmaids' dresses - Rose hadn't been wrong about the yellow, surprisingly. Turned out Alice and I looked okay in such a bright color. Her face filled the shot, relaxed and laughing at our dad's father of the bride speech. What I would give to hear that sound fill this room again…her laugh was contagious. Then Rose became a blur and her baby son was pushing himself up onto his feet, taking two wobbly steps to grab the TV cabinet and planting his tiny hand against the screen. I clasped my hand to my mouth and started bawling my eyes out, before I had the sense to take a photo. I got down on the floor and tried to coax him to walk back to me, but he plopped down on his bottom and looked from me to the TV. I was fucking gutted Emmett wasn't there to see it, and it was probably a good thing he didn't try it again. He resumed crawling as if it hadn't happened.

I didn't sleep that night. Instead I began work on creating a scrapbook for Ben of his time with Rose. Alice and I were both camera nuts, so there were thousands of photos right through her pregnancy, of when they created his nursery, the birth, and nearly every day up until she was gone. I made sure there were pictures of her framed on the wall of his room so he'd always know her face.

The morning after Emmett returned, I lay in bed tossing things around in my head while listening for sounds of Ben waking. I was staring at the baby monitor when there was a faint rap on the door.

"Come in," I said.

Emmett popped his head around the door then slipped through, making his way to my armchair.

"How's it going angel?" he asked, sinking into the cushion.

"Can't complain, big bro," I said with a sigh.

He nodded a little, clear that he knew there was more that I should be saying, but wouldn't.

"I was talking to Jasper last night," he began.

"Oh yup," I replied, wondering where this was going.

"He, um, mentioned that you and his friend Edward had seen a bit of each other?"

He said it as a question, but he knew everything that was going on in my life. I just took care with exactly the level of depth I gave him, not wanting to rub salt in any wounds with my shallow issues.

He was looking at the photo of me and Rose on my bedside. It was taken by Alice on a weekend trip to La Push beach a few years back. We were deliriously happy, our faces squished together and hair all wavy and blowing from the salt air.

"Bella, do you think that if I had known that Rose would die so young I never would have kissed her in the park that day, or asked her to marry me, or been overjoyed to watch her glowing as we met our son?"

He swallowed audibly and then looked to my eyes.

"I would never give back any of those moments, even knowing what I know now, that Ben and I would lose her much too soon."

He looked at his hands momentarily, then back to me.

"If I can give you anything for what you've done for me, it's to tell you that you mustn't hold back from something that could be magical just because you're afraid. You know what Rose would have said – after she'd watched you fuck it up and let you finally figure this out for yourself...she would have said that it's better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all."


	17. Chapter 17

"_Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."_

- _Margery Williams, __The Velveteen Rabbit_

**17**

Emmett's words stayed with me because he was right. He _had_ given me something; he'd woken me up to what I was missing out on and denying myself out of fear. Sure I was sad and a little fucked up at the moment. But I hadn't always been that way. I still had potential. I hoped…

I needed Alice. I needed to realize that it was okay for us to talk about things that weren't related to death, dying, or missing Rose. If Alice and I stopped talking about everything else that was going on in our lives then I worried that we'd lose ourselves to this. If Emmett could give me that advice from where he was at right now, then I owed it to him to open up. Just because I needed to talk about Edward didn't mean I was forgetting Rose or that I was any less distraught over what had happened to her.

Alice was watching _Friends _re-runs on her bed when I arrived at their house. Jasper welcomed me in with a kiss on the cheek and directed me upstairs. He was busy with paperwork for the restaurant on the dining table. When I walked into their bedroom, I could tell she wasn't really watching the television, she was just looking at it. She smiled and hugged me as I lay down next to her.

"Can we talk like we used to about trivial, self-absorbed type things that aren't death?" I asked, watching Ross kissing Rachel.

"Please. Yes. Talk." She rolled onto her side and propped her head up on her hand.

"The past couple of days with Ben reminded me what I had thought fleetingly when we first lost Rose and then let myself forget. Watching him take those couple of steps to his mom reminded me that I should be seizing every opportunity as if it were the last, loving my family as if I couldn't love you guys another day more."

Thanks to Emmett I now saw that my defenses with Edward were contradictory to that idea.

"I thought this wasn't about death."

"That was just the introduction." I sighed with the weirdness of talking about something that used to be so normal. "I told Edward I couldn't do whatever it was that we were doing or going to do. He's been so nice and supportive and basically just perfect. He doesn't need to be burdened with a fuck-up like me."

"You know I'm going to say that you're not a fucking fuck-up."

"I felt like a fucking fuck-up. Maybe not so much anymore, but you have to admit what we've got going on here isn't exactly normal."

"What is normal? Everyone's got a fucked-up family member or two. The fucking unlucky of us also get to go through this cunty shit-storm that is loss and grief. What's not normal about that?"

"Your tongue's loosened up recently."

"I just figured what's the point of holding back from saying cunt if I fucking feel the urge. It'll pass."

I loved her when she was like this. Open and taking no prisoners. She was often the more patient and reasoned one of us, but her passion was a fantastic force.

"I don't know. Maybe I'm reading too much into this. He hasn't exactly said outright that he wants more with me. He's been supportive and a friend, sure. I could be jumping to conclusions," I mused.

"I think Emmett's point was that you're not giving him a chance to show you that he wants more. You've jumped before you've let him give you any conclusions to jump to. Does that make sense? My brain/mouth connections aren't super these days."

"No, yeah. I get what you mean."

We were quiet for a bit. Alice was thinking and I was just existing next to her, trying not to think so much anymore.

"Live, Bella. For _you_. Not for the rest of us. You're always putting what you think everyone else needs before what you need because you feel like you owe us for being there for you or something. You don't owe us shit. We'll still be here with you no matter how selfless or selfish you are. Unless you go Renee selfish, then you're on you're fucking own." She laughed a little and meant it. We had to laugh at our mother to keep the resentment far away.

She brushed my hair from my face and stroked her hand against my head a couple of times like she used to when I was a little girl. It was always the most comforting feeling.

"Are you going to try again?" I asked quietly.

She looked at the duvet cover. She had moved her hand to toy with a fold of fabric between her fingers like Rose used to do unconsciously. She'd do it on your clothes if you were sitting next to her. I had always loved that about her. So simple and odd, but it was one of the tiny quirks that completed who she was.

"When my body's ready, yeah. We'll try again." She looked up at me then back to her hand. "Rose never gave up, so why should I?"


	18. Chapter 18

"_You realize that trying to keep your distance from me will not lessen my affection for you. All efforts to save me from you will fail."_

― _John Green, __The Fault in Our Stars_

**18**

Despite the fact I had tried to push him away, Edward still showed up to the sentencing as he had promised. I underestimated him once again. He stood out amongst our friends and relatives in the public gallery, looking smart in a shirt and tie. I was pleased to see him. His presence was reassuring.

I wasn't sure if I wanted to look at the man who had taken my sister from us, but once I was inside the courtroom, I knew that I needed him to see my face. I needed his actions to not just be a bad memory but to have the attachment of the people whose lives had been affected. He needed to see the pain etched in our expressions, the sleeplessness that hung underneath our eyes. When he noticed baby Ben on my hip, he hung his head in shame. _Good._

Feeling vindictive toward him had always seemed like a hopeless cause. There was nothing that came out of that which would do any good. I was sure he was sorry. That was fine, but even that seemed a bit meaningless. He reminded me a little of Renee's dickhead. From what I knew, this guy wasn't simply a bad person like Phil was, but I got the impression that before he killed my sister, he had the belief that he was above the law and invincible. It was a generational thing. There was a pocket of the population who grew up in a time where everyone got in their cars after having a few drinks, and no one saw any harm in that. Charlie was of the same generation; only he had the common sense and experience that came from policing to know better.

Society and the police had wised up to the issues associated with alcohol years ago, but the culture-shift left behind people like this guy. It wasn't just teens who didn't have the brain capacity to make a decision not to get behind the wheel drunk. That was a common misconception. It was just that this older generation and their mindset was far harder to reach.

That was part of the sentiment that Charlie so convincingly spoke of in his victim impact speech. The rest was personal, honest, and excruciating to listen to coming from my dad. He hadn't been in a position to manage speaking at the funeral, but he did the family proud when he pulled his words together in front of the court. His statement was published in the paper the next day as the press made a topical push for drunk-driving awareness.

The prosecution had angled for an example to be made that day. Penalties in the past had been far too lenient, never coming close to the maximum life sentence that was available. Offenders needed to be shown that the court wasn't going to take manslaughter lightly just because it happened using a car rather than a gun or other weapon. The prosecution succeeded. The judge handed down seventeen years of prison time without possibility of parole, and the maximum $50,000 fine. He said he made his decision in light of the driver being three times the legal limit, having been pulled over and convicted once before, and the negligent circumstances surrounding the crash.

It didn't seem like enough. Ben would still have needed his mother in seventeen years time… That was just the way these things worked, though. There would never be an appropriate solution. We all went back to Charlie's afterward, somber and emotionally exhausted from the day. Sue insisted she'd bring around enough dinner to feed all of us, washed down with a few bottles of red wine. It was good to be together.

The next day a tray of cupcakes from my favorite bakery was delivered to Emmett's doorstep. There was a small card attached. _You can't stop me from feeding you. x_

Edward probably wouldn't know it, but I'd been ignoring the fact that I must have lost at least twenty pounds that I didn't really have to lose in the past months. My skinny jeans weren't skinny anymore, and my tops slipped around my shoulders. I had always been a bit of a foodie, but nothing tasted good anymore, and half the time, I just forgot to eat. I would make meals for Emmett and Charlie but never get around to having any myself. Grandma Hale's chicken was the first thing I recalled consciously enjoying.

I selected a lemon meringue one and sat down in the kitchen on a barstool. Emmett was playing with Ben in the family room. I planned on eating at least six before I offered him one. No doubt that would please Edward. I pulled out my phone to text him.

_Thank you for the cupcakes._

_My pleasure. But you could also thank me by having lunch with me tomorrow._

_Edward…_

_We're friends, Bella._

_I don't want to use you for your good ears and cupcakes._

_You're not using me if I'm the instigator. (And I know you're after more than my good ears and cupcakes.)_

_That's the problem._

_Don't let it be a problem. _

_Where?_

_The Japanese place next to the hospital. I'll be free at 1._

_Unless I'm in a cupcake coma, I'll see you then. _


	19. Chapter 19

"_When a child first catches adults out – when it first walks into his grave little head that adults do not always have divine intelligence, that their judgments are not always wise, their thinking true, their sentences just – his world falls into panic desolation. The gods are fallen and all safety gone. And there is one sure thing about the fall of gods: they do not fall a little; they crash and shatter or sink deeply into green muck. It is a tedious job to build them up again; they never quite shine. And the child's world is never quite whole again. It is an aching kind of growing."_

― _John Steinbeck, __East of Eden_

**19**

"How was Japanese?" Alice asked, opening the door to me.

"Delicious."

"I'm not talking about the fucking food, Bella."

"I know."

We giggled, just like teenagers again, except the look that passed between us when we fell silent had never been there when we were younger. _Rose would have loved this conversation_. She hugged me with one arm then led me to the couch. There were Chinese food boxes and chopsticks on the coffee table.

Jasper was starting to do a few more nights at the restaurant to relieve James, who had been covering for him. There was definitely a point at which we all felt we couldn't push the generosity of time that people had given us. Alice and Charlie were both going back to work next week. I had my meetings the week after. No matter what you told yourself, it still irked that going back to things you had put a hold on felt too much like moving on. It was like I needed a badge so everyone would know I wasn't a bad person. _I'm at work, but I swear I haven't forgotten what happened. I'm going on a date, but I promise I'm still grieving for you. _I probably didn't need a badge to tell people. I'm pretty sure it was all over my face.

Japanese _had _been delicious, in multiple ways. I was finally letting myself look at Edward how I wanted to, without feeling guilty. We didn't talk about what I'd said; we just had casual conversation like friends would. Friends who checked each other out pretty blatantly. It was a good start to seeing where this would go. I would try not to hold back or deny him something just because I thought it wasn't any good for him. Who was I to decide that on his behalf? Progress. I was making progress.

"Good to see you eating again. You were wasting away; I thought I was going to have to start drip feeding you in your sleep soon," Alice said through a mouthful of vegetables, gesturing to me with her chopsticks.

"Everything lost its appeal."

"I know exactly what you mean, I just didn't have an option with Jasper force-feeding me each day."

"He's a good man, Ali."

"The best." Her sincerity with anything regarding Jasper was a wonderful thing. I was starting to hope that I could have something similar some day.

"I got Emmett to agree to see a counselor next week. He can't get the crash out of his head. He screams at night sometimes. To be honest, we wake each other up with our panics and screams. For once, Ben is the best sleeper in the house."

Alice had frozen mid-mouthful, worry in her eyes.

"You didn't tell me."

"It's pretty awful. I didn't really want to. The actual crash is something he doesn't want to burden us with, so I told him he needed to get it out with someone else."

"That's good. And you – you'll talk to me?"

"Always."

We ate quietly for a bit. The TV was on mute and Counting Crows were on the CD player. My sisters and their generational music identifiers. My vast range of music taste was definitely thanks to them.

"I was thinking about Renee after her no-show at the sentencing."

Alice groaned. "Me too."

"Mrs. Mallory from the shop next to hers in Phoenix called to see how the family was doing. I haven't been there in ten years, and she still wanted to check in. She told me Renee's business is in the toilet. Apparently Renee is never there anyway, always off fluffing with cappuccinos and appointments and whatever the fuck it is that man has her doing. But she said he's run it in to the ground. The young girl they got to work for them told Mrs. Mallory the dickhead skims the till and doesn't pay the bills. Reckons the IRS are sniffing around."

"Well that's not a surprise, is it? We're outsiders, and even we could tell all of that from the shit they spin when they talk about how much money they've got. She's always known how to spend. Whether it was Charlie's money before the divorce or the settlement funds after. She pissed away Poppa's inheritance decorating her fucking house. Living beyond her means is Renee's forte."

"Yeah, but of course the outcome of this is always going to be worse for her than for him. He's not legally tied to it. She'll be the one investigated, bankrupted, and out on her ass. Just watch, he'll drop her faster than a flaming turd when he can't get anything more out of being with her. It's not like it's about love or sex. He's always gotten that gratification from hookers, not her."

"She'll never see his faults through the wool he's pulled over her eyes," Alice responded. "I had no idea emotional abuse could be so powerful. She used to know deep down that she chose wrong, and if she weren't so pigheaded about sticking by her decision, I'm sure she would have gotten out. She didn't want everyone else to see that she'd made a mistake. So instead she pretends it's perfect and that she's untouchable. "

"Every day I'm just waiting for everything to implode around her. And it sounds terrible saying I'm just waiting for it, but we're powerless to stop it happening. We've told her time and time again that that man will destroy her. She thinks we just hate him because he's not Charlie. She can't see that we hate him because he's a bad person. He's ruined her. If she'd left Charlie and stood on her own two feet, I might have respected that. But she sold her soul to a devil. He's brainwashed her, and piece-by-piece, he's picking her life apart. Eventually he'll take everything she's got and leave her for the crows."

If there was one thing we were good at talking about and analyzing, it was Renee – though we tried not to waste our breath too often. Despite her being completely baffling, it was all pretty fucking obvious. It was nothing we hadn't discussed before, the evidence against the man she'd left our father for stacking up year by year. From the drunken display at one of Alice's birthdays, after which he at least had the sense to not come around us anymore, to the time Emmett saw him picking up a hooker when Renee was in Seattle with him, to the colleague of Charlie's who told us of the three woman he'd played, scammed, abused, and deserted before our mother. He was a real piece of work, and there wasn't a thing we could say to Renee to get her to see it.


	20. Chapter 20

**The perfectness of the following quote came completely by chance after I'd finished writing, in case you were wondering! Have I hinted lately that I love your reviews? Xx**

**-x-x-x**

"_There once was a girl who found herself dead._

_She peered over the ledge of heaven_

_and saw that back on earth_

_her sister missed her too much,_

_was way too sad,_

_so she crossed some paths_

_that would not have crossed,_

_took some moments in her hand_

_shook them up_

_and spilled them like dice_

_over the living world._

_It worked._

_The boy with the guitar collided_

_with her sister._

_'There you go, Len,' she whispered. 'The rest is up to you.'"_

_- Jandy Nelson, __The Sky Is Everywhere_

**20**

Edward had a huge day in surgery on Monday, so it was Tuesday before I heard from him. He'd called on Sunday when I was with Alice to say goodnight when he finished his shift in the afternoon. He had a tough roster that week, the flip side of which meant he was getting a full seven days off soon. We'd been texting a lot, but when I saw his name on the caller display it surprised me how much I wanted to hear his voice. I felt awkward, but he clearly didn't, chatting to me casually. I could answer all his questions, until he asked me to meet him the following night. Despite my new will to let him in, I still stuttered over a response, until he cut me off.

"Bella, just meet me at the benches at Pike Place at seven p.m. I'll see you then."

Alice came over uninvited the next evening, made sure I was dressed, shoved my coat toward me and pushed me out the door. I was sitting on a wooden bench seat when Edward arrived with two cups of hot chocolate. We walked around and took in the view of the city lights reflecting across the water. I was once again surprised at how comfortable it was. We had finished our drinks and were back where we started from, leaning against the railing, when Edward pulled something out of his coat pocket and handed it to me.

"What is it?" I asked, feeling a little silly.

"What does it look like?" he said with a gentle smile.

"It looks like a heart-shaped box I guess."

"That's exactly what it is," Edward said, his smile spreading to his eyes.

"It has no lid and it's empty," I said, blushing from the embarrassment at missing something.

"Correct again."

I looked at him blankly, taking my bottom lip between my teeth.

"Bella, it is what it is. It's not hiding anything. It's not taking anything away. And it's not going anywhere you don't want it to. It's ready and willing to keep and look after something, if you want it to. If you want it to be yours, then it already is." And then he wasn't just talking about the box anymore. "It just needs to know."

He finished by placing the pad of his thumb against my lip and drawing it out from my teeth. He left his hand against my face, cupping my cheek and chin. I felt my eyes moisten knowing that, somehow, this man got me. Somehow he understood me and he understood my pain. More than that though, he could feel my fear, and while he may not fully understand that, he was ready and willing to attempt to adapt to it. He wanted to be what I needed. He wanted to be what I had convinced myself I didn't or shouldn't want.

"How did you know?" I stuttered quietly. He had stunned me.

"At the hospital when I gave you Rose's belongings. And a few things you've said since."

I just stared at it, dumbfounded.

"I've got the lid, if you ever want to seal it in, to keep forever," he whispered. He placed a delicate, chaste kiss on my forehead with his full, soft lips, and with that, he moved away into the cool Seattle night air.

I watched him until he faded into the distance, and then I brought my eyes back to my heart-shaped box. His words replayed in my head. I was the one who held it safely in my hands, and I would be the one who decided what to do with it. How he knew to dig so deep into me was baffling. He'd delved under the cover I had put up to protect both him and me and found things that even I had barely just figured out for myself. In a matter of months, I would gamble that he knew me better than _I_ knew me.

I had unwittingly denied myself the capacity to form attachment beyond those who were vital to my survival. Seemingly strong marriages ended in pain and heartache, mothers moved away from daughters, grandparents showed you unfailing love then passed on all too soon. Someone who was so indelibly a part of you that you were absolutely convinced that they would never, ever leave you – not until you were both on your way out… Nothing was untouchable; nothing was safe. One third of you could be removed with the resounding final thud of your sister's heart. But I was stupid if I thought I wasn't already attached to Edward. Denial wouldn't change the feeling in my gut that was creeping closer and closer toward my heart.

This box I held, it contained the possibility of mending my missing piece. What it symbolized wasn't a replacement; it was just different and new. I didn't hate this at all. In fact, from deep inside me, I was aching to give myself over to it. Everything I had been stifling within me was bursting to be let free.


	21. Chapter 21

"_You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes."_

― _A.A. Milne, __Winnie-the-Pooh_

**21**

I called Edward when I woke up the next morning. I knew he was working but thought I'd at least get his voicemail. Sure enough his polite, friendly voice spoke a recorded message, followed by the beep.

"Edward, it's Bella. I'd love to see you again tonight if you're not busy, so…give me a call back and we can make plans. Hope your morning is going okay. Right…speak soon."

I hoped I didn't sound too nervous. While he managed to put me completely at ease when I was with him, the idea of him intimidated me. Especially after stumping me with his sweetness the previous night. I hadn't known him for long, but I had yet to find any faults. It was a foreign concept to me when it came to potential boyfriends.

He called me back an hour later after he got out of a successful surgery. He was brimming because it had been particularly touch and go, and the kid was doing well. His passion for his job and life in general was contagious. I needed to be around that so badly.

"Is Emmett home for Ben tonight?" he asked eventually.

"Yeah, he is."

"Come to my place for dinner? I'm finishing up a bit early, so I'll have time to cook."

"You cook?" _Still no faults._

"Yeah, but please reserve judgment on that until you've actually tasted my food." He laughed and I couldn't help but smile. Something so simple had never felt so good.

"Shall I come at six?"

"Please. I'll text you the address, gor…" He stopped whatever he was going to say. "It's really close to your place."

It was a big day for me. When I hung up from Edward, I called my friend Ang. She'd come to the funeral and texted me every few days to let me know she was thinking of me, but I hadn't really let her in yet. She'd had a son in our last year of college with her boyfriend Eric, and Leo was around the same age as Ben. She was happy to hear from me and didn't ask any questions I couldn't really answer. We set up a playdate at the park at lunchtime, and Ang offered to bring a picnic. For the two hours that we sat in the grass watching the boys, I almost felt human. Ang had enough to tell me about to stop the conversation from drifting to the elephant on my shoulder, and Leo's and Ben's happiness as they stared, babbled, and threw toys about was a good distraction.

Emmett got home just before five and took Ben off my hands for dinner and bath time. My brother-in-law's homecoming was always one of my favorite moments. The look on his face when he greeted his son always obliterated the weight of loss his eyes carried when Ben wasn't with him.

"So, I have a date. Tonight. But there's dinner for you in the fridge."

He looked back to me with a very knowing smile. It was a genuinely happy one. I hated using the word date when the word grieving felt like it should be the only activity we were associated with at the moment. But I also knew that Emmett encouraged this. He wanted me to take a risk and open my heart like the rest of my family had at some point in their lives. Instead of saying anything, he kissed my forehead and went to get out of his suit.

I couldn't remember the last time I had worn makeup. I decided a little mascara and an attempt at lightly concealing the dark circles under my eyes wouldn't go amiss. I had started to look like the dead one. I raided Rose's closet for a cashmere sweater, ever hopeful that her clothes would carry her scent forever. I liked having something of her with me. When I slipped on my non-skinny skinny jeans, I wondered if I should be dressing up. But it was Edward, and at Edward's house, and he would forgive me my casualness.

Checking the address on the mailbox, I pulled my Mini Cooper up outside a beautiful dark grey wooden house. It was two-storied and long across the huge section; I imagined it made the most of the view it must get of the Sound from this vantage point. Excited to see more, I grabbed the dish of chocolate mousse from my passenger seat and headed up the front path.

Edward was of course quite the sight when he opened the door to me. It felt like each time I saw him it was for the first time. I supposed in a way that was true; as time progressed, my capacity to really see Edward was increasing, and the fog in my head was gradually lifting. He was hard to miss tonight. His dark jeans sat low on his hips, and a simple grey t-shirt fitted across his chest just so. Nothing about him was forced. He looked comfortable but handsome at the same time. The smile on his full lips was so pleased to see me, and I caught it immediately and gave him one of my own.

"It's good to see that smile, Bella," he said softly, gesturing for me to come inside.

The air between us was easy as he showed me the main living areas of his open-plan home and placed a glass of wine in my hand. I had been right – the length of the house opened out at the back to a yard and pool area overlooking the water. The interior was so nicely decorated that I assumed his mom must have had an influence. I felt more relaxed in his home instantly, so reflective of the way I felt with the man who lived there. I watched from a barstool at the bench as Edward finished off some great looking steaks and served them up with roast potatoes and salad.

Conversation flowed easily until it was time for me to serve up my mousse. I got stuck inside my head a little. I needed to tell him what I was feeling – I owed it to him after the amazing gesture he made the night before.

"What are you thinking, Bella? That lip and occasional brow furrow are a dead giveaway." The way he said it wasn't challenging. It was an opening. There was no point beating around the bush. He'd never done that with me.

"I don't know how to let you in."

"You're doing it. You don't need to think about it. Just be with me. Talk to me. It'll come to us." He shrugged to punctuate the simplicity of the idea.

"I'm _scared_ to let you in."

I looked up at him and found his eyes scanning my face carefully. His eyelashes batted when he blinked. He was so remarkable to look at.

"I'm not going anywhere," he said softly.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I feel connected to you. Not because of what happened. Just connected, protective, attracted…all of it. It's almost like somebody put me on this earth to find you, help to heal you, and make you mine forever. I know what I want, Bella. That means that I'm not going anywhere unless you're coming too." He looked down for a moment. "I'm not sure what I'm saying." But when he looked back up at me, I was fairly sure he did know what he was saying.

I leaned across the corner of the dining table and closed the gap between us, my eyes fixed on his, determined and amazed. I watched as he looked to my lips and back to my eyes, and then we were kissing. Like everything related to Edward Cullen, it was perfect. Slow and cautious to start, then utterly convincing. His hand moved to my cheek, his thumb against my chin gently shifting my lower lip open to him as his tongue met mine. It was like we'd been kissing each other for a lifetime and knew exactly how to make the other person's toes tingle, heart thrash, and brain turn to glitter. I _wanted_ to keep kissing him for a lifetime.

I pulled away a millimeter to whisper against his lips.

"Whatever that little box symbolizes? I want it to be mine."

"Like I said, it already is yours. So, _so_, yours."

I smiled against him and sealed his sentiment with our kisses.


	22. Chapter 22

**I'm going away this weekend so it is likely that I'll miss a day of posting. I know you'll forgive me? Loved everyone's reactions to the last two chapters – thank you. I seriously have some amazing readers for this fic. Hope you'll stick with me xx**

**-x-x-x-**

"_Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain."_

_- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet_

**22**

We had dinner again the following night with Emmett at his place. Edward held Ben for a while before Em put him to bed. It was nice to see him with my nephew away from a hospital room. I got the impression that Edward felt the same. His job had made him a natural with kids, and I think Ben may have even recognized him. It was a welcome reminder of that little boy having so many people around him who cared.

Em headed to bed early given he had an early wake-up call from an unsettled little man this morning. He couldn't get him back down, so I got up and we took him for an early morning walk together. The suburbs were peaceful at that time; the fresh air felt good hitting my lungs. We didn't talk much. Both of us just enjoyed the simplicity of something at a time when life hadn't seemed to have much simplicity. I'd even woken feeling fresher than normal. Edward's kisses seemed to work as a natural sedative to my unsettled sleep and nightmares. I'd slept for five hours in one stretch, an improvement on my recent record of two.

I joined Edward on the couch, him with a red wine and me with a cup of tea. It was supposed to help me sleep, but I think I'd found a better holistic method for that. After last night, it didn't feel like I needed any polite distance between us. When I leaned in to him, he lifted an arm, tucking me against his chest. We were quiet for a while, enjoying the change that had allowed us to become closer, Coldplay on in the background. It was a big deal, and if Edward hadn't been there, the room would have been silent. I'd been avoiding music. As someone who loved the written word, lyrics were like candy to no me. Too many of them held potential to be a catalyst for a memory or more tears.

"This song – 'Yellow' – it always reminded me of her."

Talk about ripping off the Band-Aid. Edward kissed my head, his hand mindlessly brushing against my neck, my hair, the fabric of my top.

"Is it kooky and spiritual to feel like my sister had a hand to play in this? It _is_ kooky and spiritual, oh man..." I laughed halfheartedly, embarrassed at myself.

Loss really did make you think of some things a bit differently than you may have before. After my grandmother died, I was convinced that she was inside the electric organ that Charlie kept from her belongings at our house. She used to play it religiously. Granddad would read or do puzzles while she played for a couple of hours a day. She had her own internal metronome. Emmett used to joke about Grandma Swan's syncopation and that you could never sing along to her Christmas carols because you'd have to pause mid-word or hold notes that weren't meant to be held. I smiled at the memory and hoped that memories of Rose would be so easy for me soon.

"It was the wrong place at the wrong time, but on the flip side, it was the right place at the right time." I sighed and shook my head. "I won't ever look at that night with even the faintest slant of positivity or thanks, aside from the fact that Ben survived, of course. Instead, I'm just going to be thankful for the time afterward, when you took a chance on me at the lowest point in my life."

We shifted so my legs were over his lap and we could see each other's faces. I sipped on my tea now that it was cooler. He was staring at me, to the point it would be unnerving if it weren't for the reverence in his eyes and the fact that I was more than happy to stare back.

"I haven't told you this yet, because there were bigger things that you needed to know. But it's started to grind on me that you haven't heard what I'm thinking every time I look at you…so I think it's an okay moment to tell you that you're the most crazy beautiful girl I've ever laid eyes on, Bella. You seriously blow me away."

I took his glass and placed it with mine on the coffee table to free our hands. I hadn't made out on a couch since my early college days, and it was never like this. Never as good, never as real, never as important. We let words slip away for a while until the depth of the night crept into our awareness.

"Will you let me come to LA with you on Monday? I have the week off, and I don't want you to be alone," he whispered, his forehead pressed gently against mine.

I had wanted to ask him but didn't want to put him in an awkward position if he couldn't or didn't want to. Trust Edward to know what I wanted without me saying so.

"Are you sure? I only have to be there three days. They've condensed all of the script work in light of my recent…stuff. I'll be tied up all day but we'd have the evenings."

"Of course I'm sure."

"I'd really like that."

I moved in to kiss the smile that touched his lips. It sounded so adolescent, but it was my happy place. I was justified in using such a cliché when the rest of my places had been so dark and challenging. I broke away and looked at him again, stroking his cheek once with my hand. I had to keep checking that he was real.


	23. Chapter 23

**I lied. I just can't stay away from you beautiful people xxx**

**-x-x-x-**

"_I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, then all at once."_

― _John Green, __The Fault in Our Stars_

**23**

If he hadn't been with me on the plane to L.A., I think I would have gotten back off before they had a chance to roll us away from the jetway. The feeling of being that bit further from my family was scary in a way that it never had been before. I knew it was a fear that would settle with time, once the fragility of life didn't seem so potent. It had become a mutual concern as Charlie and Alice had both subtly expressed their comfort in knowing I wasn't going alone. Edward's hand held mine between our seats, and we passed the time with discussion of our studies, college days, and my thoughts on what I wanted to do with my degree after this project. It was the first time I'd talked about the future with purpose in nearly four months.

The meetings were successful and smooth. A cast had been settled on, the executives were happy with the script, and the next time I would be required was for a couple of days of read-throughs on location before shooting started. I was a small fish in a big pond, and there was a lot to learn, but my mentor and the author seemed suitably impressed. It wasn't the daylight hours that would be the most memorable though.

The first night Edward and I had a quiet dinner at the hotel restaurant. When we'd checked in that afternoon, he'd paused in the lobby to ask if I wanted two rooms. I wondered why I hadn't ever thought that we wouldn't share. It just seemed natural. He was a perfect gentleman when we got back to the bedroom, which I decided was a good thing for now. I wanted to do far more than just have him hold me, and I also knew I needed to make sure I was completely ready for that. Edward was important, and I wanted to be all that he deserved when I gave all of me over to him. Not so much physically, because I was pretty sure that would take care of itself, but mentally.

The second night I came back to the hotel to find a new dress laid out on the bed, along with a pair of heels I would covet but my credit card would decline. He was already dressed in dark pants and a steel grey shirt, and he informed me we had a reservation at a restaurant I'd always wanted to dine at. He said it was a fortunate coincidence we both liked to eat great food, so it wasn't just fulfilling his own L.A. agenda. I tried to ignore the eye-popping designer label when I slipped on the black fabric in the bathroom, admiring his choice in the mirror before quickly refreshing my makeup. His expression when I returned to the room reminded me of the merits of getting glammed up. Edward had never seen me like this, and I found that for once, it was my smiles making him smile, rather than the other way around. He admitted when I thanked him a third time for his impressive efforts that he'd checked in my suitcase for shoe and clothing size. He chanced it and went down a size on the dress, and the worry that glanced his face encouraged me to say yes to dessert when the waiter asked.

I felt Edward watching me as I gathered up my phone and wallet to head out the door. I looked down at myself one last time and felt a shiver of anticipation and change zap down the length of my body. Before I could look up again, arms wrapped around me in a hug. Edward's chin rested on the top of my head, and I let myself nestle against him. Hugs were so underrated.

"I'm so glad you let me in," he said quietly above me.

"So am I," I replied against his chest.

There was a little more heavy petting that night, as my nana used to say. The energy between us across the candlelit table was new. The glances over the top of wine glasses as coy sips were taken. The passing of forks as we made appreciative noises over culinary genius. The way there were no distractions elsewhere in the room, our bodies zoned only for the cocoon around us. When we fell into bed that night, kisses gave way to purposeful touches; lips against necks, breasts, collarbones, and almost everywhere else; fingers searching out warmth and an orgasm that made me forget everything but the man working me over so expertly with only his hands and mouth. I slept a full six hours without a dream, wrapped up in his body.

I finished at lunchtime on our last day. We took in some of the sights of Hollywood, and I brought Ali a pair of stripey Italian ballet flats from a little boutique store. It was the first time in a long time that I'd stepped into a shop that didn't only sell groceries or coffee. That afternoon, I didn't feel like "the dead girl's sister," or that I shouldn't be feeling the things I was feeling as Edward clasped my hand in his while walking along the streets. We didn't bother with clothes to sleep in that night, and the activities once the lights went out followed a similar course to the one prior. Discovery morphed into familiarization as we began to commit every curve, freckle, and sensitive spot to memory. I had never felt so comfortable with a man seeing or touching my body before. Edward felt like home.


	24. Chapter 24

"_I know you look both ways before you cross the street, but I want you to look both ways a second time, because I told you to."_

_-__ Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close_

**24**

Making the most of Edward's days off, I asked him to join Ben and me on a ferry trip across to Bainbridge Island. It was one of my favorite things about Seattle, that by stepping onto one of those boats you could transport yourself to places where time didn't seem so frantic and home looked more like a beautiful vacation spot. The waters of the bay were milky and flat, and the sun had cracked through the early morning clouds.

We were having a small celebration of Ben's first birthday that Sunday. I had been putting off thinking about the day, other than in a somewhat autonomic manner of practical organization. It was bittersweet. The guilt lapped at me, knowing that we would all be there while the woman who loved him more than anything in the world had had that day stolen from her. Despite the sadness, we would do everything we could to give Ben the birthday celebration that Rose would have wanted. I was going to pick up some presents from my favorite bookstore on the Island, as well as a few more decorations for the house.

I swapped cars with Em to use his big X5 on days I had to transport Ben with bulky accessories like his stroller. The Mini was fun but not cut out for that sort of transport – not to mention I got a kick out of seeing my burly bro-in-law behind the wheel of it. He'd struggled a bit with the memories associated with his car from that night. He regretted not making Rose drive his rather than her smaller sedan. I tried to assure him that not even an SUV with a 5-star safety rating could have saved her from that impact. No matter the "what ifs," blaming himself in any way whatsoever was never going to bring her back.

Edward looked divine when he climbed in next to me outside his house, giving me a tempting hello kiss. He looked even more divine with the soft sun hitting him on the deck of the ferry, as he unclipped Ben from his stroller and took him to show him the waves and seagulls. Both boys were so happy, Ben babbling at Edward as he pointed to the birds squawking alongside the boat. Was it okay for me to want this when it was still easy to count the weeks since we had lost her? Was it okay that the vision of Edward with my nephew gave me glimpses of hope for my own child one day, when I needed to be focused on hers?

After I picked out some of my favorite picture books to add to Ben's collection, I found myself in the self-help section. I'd never bothered with any subject matter of these books before, not having the patience when there were other options that would suck me in and carry me away without possibility of putting it down until the last page. With Emmett going to counseling once a week, I figured for what it was worth, I could take a small dose of my own medicine. Edward alone was helping immensely, yet I didn't want to rely on him or burden him with all of my confusion. Even if they were nonsense, I shouldn't be any worse off than I was now, and at least I could say I'd tried. I found a couple that didn't seem too prescriptive in their discussion of loss and grief and picked up another on raising boys for good measure.

I gave Edward his first experience of amazing artisan ice cream and we sat in the village green to give Ben his lunch. I didn't realize until we were back on the ferry with Ben asleep in my arms that I'd already come so far, compared to my endless days of going through an unconscious routine of getting myself from sunrise to sunset intact. Those little discoveries always shifted Rose to the forefront of my mind, as if thinking of her alone was enough to ensure that my getting out and smiling didn't mean I had forgotten her or missed her any less.

Edward and I didn't feel comfortable with him staying over at Em's house, and I decided I needed a couple more weeks before it would feel okay to tell Emmett I was going to sleep elsewhere from time to time. He had managed fine when I was in L.A., but this was different. I wanted to show respect for what he was missing, as a reflection of what he had given me in encouraging me to chase after that very same thing. It was a gross understatement that I enjoyed my nights with Edward. It was early days, and if the time came for us to spend all of them together, it would have been well worth the wait.

Alice finally tracked Renee down to remind her of Ben's birthday and the invite to the party. Much to our surprise, she showed, an hour and twenty minutes late. She'd even managed to get him a couple of quite cool gifts that she didn't make an enormous song and dance about when she added them to the pile. She did of course do her usual "can I do anything to help?" then tune out and proceed to just sit there. Alice and I rolled our eyes and continued to dish up the kids' party food that even the adults were having for lunch. Even our healthy father was eying up the peanut butter and jelly and mini hot dogs.

It was mostly family who filled the house that day, but we knew that it wouldn't be right if we ignored others who were a part of Ben's life when Rose was here. When I opened the door to her two closest friends and saw how grateful they were to be there with their kids, I knew that those who cared for my sister and her son extended way beyond the bubble we had been living in recently. Sarah and her husband Steve were Ben's godparents, and she took me off to the side to say that she didn't want to interfere without being asked, but to know that they wanted to help in any way they could.

Ang and Eric came along with Leo, Sue joined Charlie, and Charlie's sister Maggie came with our cousins, Kate and Bree. They were both older than Rose and had always doted on me as the youngest in the family. Kate now had two kids and Bree had one, and it was strange to realize how, in the course of our lives changing and me being forced to be more responsible post-college – and certainly in the past months – that suddenly I felt like their peer. They all still looked out for me, but I was more of an equal, an adult. I only wished it had been more of a natural progression than a swift kick into the deep end.

I found myself observing Renee occasionally during the afternoon. She was always a little more reserved when Charlie's family was around. Maggie was unfailingly polite despite the fact Renee had lost her respect a long time ago. I knew Renee had always wanted to emulate the close relationship Maggie had with her daughters, yet somehow she managed to head in completely the opposite direction. She didn't have the self-perception to realize that truth for herself, though she did know enough not to run her mouth off quite as much around them.

Alice and I took hundreds of pictures to fill the albums and scrapbooks that I had been creating. When I watched Ben laugh at us as we sang to him and his delight as he smooshed his little hand into blue icing, I decided that he would be all right. Looking around the room of people who loved that little boy, it may not make up for what his beautiful mom would have given him, but it might just be enough. We would make sure he knew Rose as well as he could without her there for him to experience for himself. We would make sure that Emmett had our support in his upbringing whenever he needed it. We would make sure he was happy, healthy, and didn't want for anything, within reason, just as Rose would have.

I was sitting with Jasper when Edward introduced himself to my mother nearby. He was so polite, that even what he knew of her wouldn't prevent him from making contact – not that I ever would have expected him to ignore her. I listened in as he explained who he was and that he was here with me. For a second, she looked like she was going to say something to diminish either his or my importance. I was used to that. When I introduced my last boyfriend to her in my first year of college, she promptly announced that all lawyers were assholes and proceeded to stereotype the profession in a way only Renee could manage. Mike's dad was one of the most respected lawyers in Washington State and he was second year law, and by no means were either of them assholes. For the first time I could remember, when Renee went to open her mouth, she shut it again. Trust Edward Cullen to be able to silence my mother.

When she went to leave that day, I followed her to the porch and called out to her. I'd already given her a vague goodbye inside, but something urged me to do better. She turned around to me and I somewhat awkwardly embraced her. We had never been particularly affectionate so it didn't last long, but before we broke apart I heard her say a quiet thank you. Sometimes she betrayed her pig-headedness to show that she knew as well as we did that she was going home to the wrong man. In spite of her shortcomings, I couldn't ignore the look she sometimes had in her eyes when she watched how close we were all were, when I knew that she was not getting an ounce of that kind of affection. All too soon she was back in her own little world though. It was okay; for a small moment I'd broken through and given her something that didn't cost me anything.


	25. Chapter 25

"_For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction. Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion, that it may sing; And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may livethrough its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes."_

_- Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet_

**25**

We started up family dinners again, on a weekly rotation between Charlie's, Alice's, and Emmett's houses. It gave us a chance to breathe and connect in the middle of the week. Beneath that, it was a reassurance that we were united in what had happened. Even if we might be resuming things like work or shopping or social occasions, we still remembered, and we still had each other. The undertones may have been somber, but we generally managed to keep it light and comfortable. It was a compulsory Wednesday night activity, except for Edward who got a pass if he was scheduled at the hospital.

He made it easy to adapt to his slightly abnormal work hours. I had a copy of his hours and when he was on call, and he never failed to get in touch when he got off a shift or before he started one if we weren't together at the time. He was easy to be with in general. Quite simply, he made me happy, and I didn't feel bad about it. We all still had bad days, when memories or reminders or her simple absence was tougher to deal with. If Edward was stuck at work on those days, then there were subtle deliveries of colorful bouquets of flowers, or trays of cupcakes, or just a few more text messages than usual. I didn't know what I'd done to deserve him.

Ben had decided that now he was a one-year-old it was time to get fully mobile. He had been pulling himself around on the furniture since his little trip to his mom on the television and was now freely toddling about the house. Edward donated a few extra baby-proofing gadgets from the pediatrics supply, handed out to promote safety from home accidents. Time wasn't going to slow down for us with Ben; like any baby there was no grace period where we got to catch up to the idea of him growing up.

Emmett had taken Ben away for a long weekend to stay with his parents, so I took the opportunity to spend a night back at Charlie's. We got take-out and watched a football game, easily slipping into our familiar housemate routine. In a way it was nice to spend a night back in my own bed. Edward had the Saturday night off work, so I took my overnight bag and headed to his house, feeling like somewhat of a nomad.

Edward was making a damn good effort at firming up my skinny jeans again. He was giving Jasper a run for his money in the male cooking skills department. After his delicious chicken pasta, we settled in to watch a movie on his huge couch. Keeping it light was key these days, so some terrible rom-com was on Edward's flat screen. I was pretty sure Edward was suffering through it, and I'd stopped paying attention after about fifteen minutes. I had other things on my mind. I stood up from the couch and started to unbutton my shirt with nervous fingers.

_It's okay to feel good. It's okay to feel good. It's okay to feel good._

"Where ya' going, gorgeous?" Edward said, a hand reaching up to the curve of my ass.

When I hit the last button, I turned to face him, pulling it from my shoulders to reveal the black lace bra I had on underneath. His eyes bugged then hooded with that wonderful look of lust. My hands moved to the button of my jeans, popping it open then slowly lowering the zipper. He stood silently to take my hand in his, pulling me with him toward his bedroom.

When we moved through the doorway, he turned back to me, pulling his white t-shirt over his head. He was eating me with his eyes, careful appreciation visible as if I were his last meal on earth. His pants hit the floor before he took two steps toward me and picked me up. I hooked my legs around him for the short journey to his bed, where he lowered me down and I pulled him with me. His feet still on the ground, his mouth found mine for the first time, and I told him with my lips and tongue what I was going to do to him with the rest of my body.

He made his way down my form, pausing where my breasts spilled out of the top of my lingerie. He cupped me in his hand, feeling the weight of them against his palm as he ran the tip of his tongue against the skin. He seemed reluctant to move on, but his gaze followed his hand as he ran it with purpose down my stomach until he found the top of jeans. As I'd already unfastened them for him, he made easy work of pulling them down my legs as torturously as possible. He smirked at me when he saw the thong that was left behind. I gave him a knowing smile back. There was nothing that wasn't good about this moment.

"Fuck," he said, more of an exhale than a word. He rarely seemed to swear, and when he did, he couldn't help but make it sexy. He clambered back on top of me, suddenly a little more furious in his need than before. In the next moments, my bra was off, his mouth finding my nipples as they perked wantonly at his touch, and my thong disappeared, a groan from Edward at the sight of me bare before him. My hand was in his boxer briefs, his length immense and oh so tempting as I began to stroke him. I was so ready to feel all of him in all of me.

Once he was naked, we slowed a little, taking a moment to appreciate what we were sharing. We continued that way – reverently. He canvassed every inch of my body with his lips; slowly, _carefully_ gracing places that had never been so lucky with the presence of hallowed mouth against grateful, sensitive skin. Touching, fondling, and kissing until we couldn't take the need any longer. Edward pushed himself inside me, teasing with just the tip, then all of the way until I felt full and whole. Edward and me together resulted in simple completion. One plus one didn't feel like it equaled two, it felt like a better version of one. He watched in pleasure at the point of our union for a few strokes before he brought his body down onto mine, hand on breast, and mouths echoing our desire.

I didn't ever remember feeling this good physically or feeling this close with someone. The emotions of it threatened to slip out, but I was distracted by the face above me as he tilted my chin to look at him. I shifted my hips, drawing another groan from his lips as I moved with him to increase the friction between us. He adjusted his angle ever so slightly, just enough to push me over the edge. _Oh God, Edward… _

The ripples turned into waves as I clenched down on him, something changing in his motion as he lost control. _I can't…so good…oh, Bella… _I loved feeling the weight of his body when he couldn't quite hold himself up as he came, pumping into me a last few times as the movement of his release took over.

When he could just breathe again, he peppered my neck with little kisses, finding my earlobe with his warm mouth. _I'm the luckiest guy in the world. _

I pulled him impossibly closer. _That must make me the luckiest girl._


	26. Chapter 26

"_And it isn't until you finally run up against your deepest demons, your unsolvable problems—the ones that make you truly who you are—that we're ready to find a lifelong mate. Only then do you finally know what you're looking for. You're looking for the wrong person. But not just any wrong person: the right wrong person—someone you lovingly gaze upon and think, 'This is the problem I want to have.' I will find that special person who is wrong for me in just the right way. _

_Let our scars fall in love."_

_-__ Galway Kinnell_

**26**

A week later, we were lying in the same position in his bed. We reluctantly pulled apart and came to rest facing each other, limbs entangled still, and eyes absorbing the image of bliss. Gradually words that didn't involve moaning or swearing found us again, and we were talking about the next couple of days. There was a lull in the conversation where Edward started playing with a lock of my hair, stroking it away from my eyes.

"I want to tell you something."

"Okay…" I was hesitant. The tone in his voice was a little different, not one I'd heard before. He paused again, and I watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed his apprehension.

"I had a sister. Her name was Charlotte and she was two years older than me."

"Was?" I said quietly.

"My parents struggled to get pregnant, so they adopted her. Then of course when they stopped trying, they became pregnant with me. The adoption was never anything we thought about, of course. She was as much one of the family as I was, despite not sharing the same blood. When she was eighteen and I was sixteen, she died from leukemia. There was only a year between her diagnosis and…the end."

I realized my mouth was agape and a tear was trickling down my cheek.

"Why didn't you tell me?" The words were breathy and marred by the confusion as to why he would keep this to himself.

"Because I didn't want you to think you should be grieving differently or feeling a certain way or doing certain things. I didn't want you to think that I should say 'I know how you feel' because I don't. I might know what it's like to lose someone, but seriously, everyone's experiences of this are different. You can't dictate it or judge it. It depends on so many things…the hows, the whys, the whos. I want to help you with the loss, but I don't want to _tell _you how to fix yourself. You didn't lose Charlotte. You lost Rose. I can't tell you what it should feel like to lose Rose. That's why I didn't tell you about my sister. I didn't want it to influence the way you felt or the way you felt toward me."

"I don't know what to say." I shook my head in shock.

"You don't have to say anything." He looked a little worried for the first time.

"I do…I do have to say something. It's just that I don't know if this is the right thing, but it's all that my mind is letting me think."

He was waiting for me to let my thoughts and my mouth connect.

"Holy shit," I said. He smiled carefully at me, thinking that was it. "I _love _you."

_That_ was it.

His eyes searched mine before we came together in a truth-sealing kiss. It was an _I love you_ kiss. It was a _thank you_ kiss. It was a _how could you be so selfless_ kiss. It was a _could you be any more right for me_ kiss. We couldn't get any closer as his hands held desperately to the sides of my face, his forehead on mine, our breaths ragged as he peeled his lips away and said, _"I love you more."_


	27. Chapter 27

"_I DON'T CARE!" Harry yelled at them, snatching up a lunascope and throwing it into the fireplace. "I'VE HAD ENOUGH, I'VE SEEN ENOUGH, I WANT OUT, I WANT IT TO END, I DON'T CARE ANYMORE!"_

_"You do care," said Dumbledore. He had not flinched or made a single move to stop __Harry demolishing his office. His expression was calm, almost detached. "You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it."_

_- J.K. Rowling, __Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_

**27**

The scariest thing about opening yourself up to love was always the risk that it opened you up to lose it. With a bit of sage advice, I had seen reason to overcome that fear. I had no doubt in my mind or in my heart that Edward Cullen was worth any risk. I hadn't been more certain of anything in as long as I could remember. Aside from finding this kind of love for the first time, the old familiar feeling of hope began to filter through me.

It was a normal afternoon in the McCarty household. Emmett was doing a half-day at work of meetings and paperwork that he couldn't manage from the home office he had created. Ben and I had been for a walk to the park in the stroller, where he had toddled about in the grass with me. He was now lying under his baby gym with his thumb in his mouth. He'd snoozed on the walk back, but his stillness indicated his afternoon nap was still in the cards. There was a little more Rose coming out in his features now. The eyes especially.

Alice and Jasper were going to have him to stay for the night tomorrow, and Emmett was going to join Edward and me for a much-needed night out. We were planning on some great Italian and a few red wines without worry of getting home to the little man.

I loved watching Edward with Ben. I couldn't help but wonder if I would see him with our own baby one day, though I was still hesitant to get too far ahead of myself. I'd come a long way.

Before I scooped him up to head up to bed, I went to get him his sippy cup from the kitchen. My cell rang and I jogged back to it, the display reading _"Charlie."_

"Hi Dad, how's your shift going?"

"Hi baby, it's okay, thanks. Honey, listen, I just got a strange message from some guys over in another precinct who reckon I might know someone involved in a call-out they had just had. I haven't got ahold of them yet to find out what the story is," he said, his voice sounding off.

I assumed he was checking in on all of us. My mind flew to Alice, then images of Emmett and Jasper. Please, no.

"Bells, is your mother in town at the moment?" he continued.

"No. Well, not that I would know," I said, thinking of my mother's habit of coming to town and leaving again without seeing us.

"They said something about a Motel 6," he continued.

"It's probably just a coincidence with the name or something, but I'll call anyway," I said. I wasn't as worried now that he'd mentioned her, not really seeing the likelihood of this coming to anything. For all I knew, she was in Phoenix.

The first person I called when I hung up from Charlie was Alice. I had to be sure she was safe. Her phone went to voicemail, though I knew she had a meeting this afternoon. I sent her a text in case she could reply to that.

_Are you & Jas safe? Is Renee in town?_

Renee's phone went unanswered, as per usual. I didn't leave a message. I reached Emmett in his office, who immediately asked after his boy. I didn't worry him with Charlie's strange story; instead I just told him I'd see him home for Ben's bath time later that evening.

Alice replied as there was a knock at the door.

_Both safe, sunshine. Haven't spoken to her in a week._

I looked up from the message as I opened the door to a middle-aged man and a slightly younger lady. They may have said who they were, but all I registered was that they had their police hats on, which meant official business. The man was talking.

"Miss? Is this the McCarty residence? We're looking for Isabella Swan," he said with a gravelly voice.

"I'm Isabella," I replied, confusion evident in my tone.

"Miss Swan, I'm terribly sorry, but we need you to come to the hospital…"


	28. Chapter 28

**You're going to have to trust me a little bit that this will be okay in the end, okay?**

**-x-x-x-**

"_I wonder if I'll ever have to decide which is worse, life as we're living or no life at all."_

_- Susan Beth Pfeffer, __Life As We Knew It_

**28**

I had heard those words before. They hit me with the feeling of each one of my organs being ripped open and filled with lead and bricks.

"…We think your mother may have been involved in an accident this afternoon, and you were listed as one of her next of kin."

I stared at them, mute. Ben gurgling in the room behind me snapped me back, and I turned around to get him off the floor.

"Have you tried her boyfriend, Phil? He would know more than me," I mumbled.

"He's not available to help us at the moment," the female replied.

_Not available_. What did that mean?

"I have my nephew; I can't leave right now," I mumbled again.

"Miss Swan, I'll drive your vehicle. You can bring him with you," she said.

_I'll drive._ She didn't think I could drive myself? She caught my eyes and must have read that I was desperately looking for another out.

"Isabella…" she said, softer this time.

"Okay, let me just get his baby bag."

I sat in the passenger seat Emmett's X5 as we followed the male detective in his unmarked police sedan. I stared out the window, Seattle flashing by me: buildings, trees and people all a blur of melded, muted tones. When we were almost at the hospital, the female, whose name I'd learned was Lauren, spoke into a radio on her shirt, then glanced at me.

"Your father is Detective Swan?"

I nodded.

"He'll meet you at the hospital as soon as he can," she replied cautiously.

I was taken to a private waiting room in the surgical ward. Ben was asleep in his stroller in front of me, and I was glad I'd thought to grab it on the way to the car. I looked up as a doctor and a plump, gentle-looking lady in a suit walked in. _Counselor_ her badge read. She looked familiar. As the doctor opened his mouth to speak, a hand came onto his shoulder from behind and he turned. Edward. I watched as he said something in the doctor's ear and then moved past him into the room. I registered that he had scrubs on and looked very handsome for someone who also looked quite tired. The other two stayed, taking seats opposite me. Edward sat next to me, his body angled toward mine. He took my hand and kissed my cheek. My hand being held by his had been one of my simplest comforts. This time it felt a little different, like an anchor attempting to hold me to him, to the world.

"Hi, beautiful." His smile didn't reach his eyes. In the last month, all his smiles had been reaching his eyes.

"What's going on?"

"Dr. Newton," he prompted, then swallowed audibly. I looked to the other doctor, while Edward kept his gaze on me.

"Miss Swan, your mother was shot today." There it was. That moment where the world suddenly feels like it's tipping off its axis, and as it turns upside down, you have to scramble as the ground beneath you disappears, trying with all your might not to fall off into the black oblivion of the atmosphere. Doctors knew about that moment and how it wiped out sight and sound. That's why he paused before he continued.

"I'm sorry to have to tell you that she died from her injuries about an hour ago. Police say she was caught up in an argument between her boyfriend and another man. Her boyfriend, Mr. Dwyer, I believe it is, was shot as well. He's in a coma."

He paused to give me a moment to digest his words. I really didn't want to digest them at all. I just stared at him, waiting for him to tell me it was really a mistake and it was somebody else named Renee Swan. Waiting for him to say that my mother was in Phoenix, where she was supposed to be.

He didn't say that, so I shook my head in denial, hoping it would encourage him to.

"I hate to ask you to do this, Miss Swan, but we need you to identify the body," he nearly whispered.

I turned my head away from him and stared at the wall with a scenic painting and a poster for grief counseling. _We're here to help_.

I felt Edward's hand tighten around mine.

I nodded.

"Are you sure you're ready? We can wait," Edward whispered.

I was never going to be ready. I moved to stand, showing him I just wanted to get it over with. He helped me up, holding me pressed to his side to make sure I was stable when I started to sway. I tried to speak to say that I couldn't take Ben with me, but words still failed me, so I gestured to him instead.

"Bella, this is Linda Cope; she was with your family last time you were here. She'll stay with Ben for us," Edward said, gesturing to the lady.

_Last time you were here. When your sister died. _I looked to her and she gave me a reassuring smile, standing to take my place beside my nephew. _A few months ago. Leaving this baby without a mother._

The warmth of Edward was all that kept my body moving as we followed the cold, sterile corridor that led to the morgue in the guts of the hospital. The walls were a horrible paisley green and it smelt like formaldehyde.

"Sorry about this, they should have kept her in the room but it's been a busy afternoon. I protested, but they needed the space," Edward said, sympathy evident in his voice. I felt bad for him. He shouldn't have to do this for me.

I managed another nod.

As we got closer to the double doors, I wanted to vomit. The chill, the smell, and the encompassing green felt like punishment for my mother being down here and not in a regular room. None of her family had been with her when she died. _They needed the space_.

A man with a grey beard in a lab coat unlocked the doors and let us in. We followed him over to a gurney and he said something to me, but I didn't hear him.

He shifted the white sheet back from the long, slim mound that lay in front of me to reveal the face.

The face that was definitely my mother's.

She wasn't quirky or annoying, she wasn't defensive, she wasn't late or absent or ignorant.

She was dead.

In that moment, I had my answer. We had no more chances. I felt everything that, as a teenager, I had questioned whether I would or not, and more.

Sadness, guilt, resentment, despair, pain.

I had my answer, but it was too late.

She was gone.


	29. Chapter 29

**Don't be shy – you don't have to write a thesis in a review to make me smile. Thank you for sticking with me.**

**-x-x-x-**

"_Adam is crying and somewhere inside of me I am crying, too, because I'm feeling things at last. I'm feeling not just the physical pain, but all that I have lost, and it is profound and catastrophic and will leave a crater in me that nothing will ever fill."_

― _Gayle Forman, __If I Stay_

**29**

I passed out. Edward was so close to me that he caught my body before I managed to really do some damage on the rock-solid linoleum floor. I was out of it long enough for him to carry me back up to his staff room. I came to cradled in his arms.

"Is it still real?" I whispered against his chest.

"Unfortunately so, gorgeous," he said, kissing my hair.

"Dr. Cullen?" A nurse popped her head around the corner of the door. "Her family is here."

"Could you let them in here please, Carmen?"

The woman held the door open, and Alice's sheet white face appeared. She ran toward me as I sat up enough to collect her in my arms.

"Bella." The way she spoke my name said so much more. _What the hell are we doing here again? How the fuck did this happen? I'm sorry, baby sis. _

"You saw her?"

I nodded into her shoulder.

"Jesus." She tried to hug me harder but she was already at full strength. "I should have gotten here faster."

"It was okay." It wasn't that okay, but she knew that. I hoped I wouldn't keep seeing the image of my mother under that sheet in my mind. She really didn't look all that peaceful. Hopefully she would look more at peace by the time we had a funeral. Another one.

When we finally released each other, I saw that Emmett and Jasper were sitting nearby with Ben still asleep in the stroller. They were silent. Shocked. Sympathetic. Feeling the painful reminders of being here only months earlier. The boys stood up, and I spent a good minute in each of their arms taking comfort in the kind of hugs that big brothers gave the best. Emmett had known me for more than half my life. He knew our family. He was in this almost as much as Alice and I were, as a witness to our history and a support.

"Where's Daddy?" I asked. He was always Daddy when I was especially grateful for his presence in my life, was scared I would lose him, or wanted to convey my affection for him.

"Dealing with the police crap," Emmett answered.

"What the fuck do we do about the _cunt_ down the hall?" Alice whispered the c-word in light of Ben's sleeping baby ears.

No one said anything.

"Maybe it'll sort itself out," Emmett said, looking at the floor. We all knew what he meant. _Maybe he'll never wake up. _

"There's this nasty part of me that wants a chance to tell him what I think of him once and for all," I said quietly.

"Charlie said if he doesn't die, he's going to prison. They've got him on a number of charges apparently. Some of them need a bit more investigation, but they'd have a case eventually. Who knows how petty or serious it'd be though?" Emmett explained.

"Do they know whose gun the bullet came from? The one that hit…"

"The surgeon handed two bullets over to police. They'll find out soon I suppose," Edward said. I shifted away from Alice and Jasper back to his lap. He enveloped me in his arms.

"The world would be a better place with out him. But the nasty part of _me_ wants him to suffer more than he has first," Alice said.

There was a collective sigh around the room.

"Do we have to stay here?" I asked Edward behind me.

"No, gorgeous. There's nothing more we can do here. We may as well all head home."

"You can come?"

"Yeah, they've given me leave. They're going to cover my shifts." I grabbed onto him and he squeezed me tighter.

The boys juggled vehicle logistics to make sure Alice and I didn't have to drive. We headed off in a convoy back to Emmett's so he could take care of Ben amongst us gathering together. Someone opened a bottle of vodka, and a glass was placed in my hand as we sat around in the family room. I had Edward on one side of me, Alice on the other, and an empty box of Kleenex sandwiched between our thighs.

Charlie finally joined us at ten p.m. He hugged Alice and me tightly, a couple of tears betraying his fatherly composure. Jasper poured him a whiskey as he took a seat and told us that there was a bullet from the asshole's gun, and a bullet from the prick he was doing business with. One was in a police cell and one had just been pronounced dead at the hospital we had just come from.


	30. Chapter 30

"_You might be looking for reasons but there are no reasons."_

― _Nina LaCour, __Hold Still_

**30**

The vodka didn't do us any favors. I think it was a combination of that, the news the prick had indeed finally destroyed our mother, and the shifting stages of shock that we were experiencing. We had a period where we were just stunned into silence before some sort of reality changed and Alice became slightly hysterical. I grabbed onto her as tight as I could trying to settle her, without being conscious of the fact that I was convulsing with sobs myself. From what I was told the next morning, Charlie and Jasper made a futile attempt to do what they could to calm us, while Emmett drove Edward to pick up some sedatives from the hospital.

I woke up with the strangest sensation, which I don't think could be blamed on the drugs. Something akin to Groundhog Day, when you were sure you were done with feeling so hideous, only to have some cruel fate deal you the same shitty hand once again. Edward's arms were wrapped firmly around me, the only reassurance that some things in the world were still as they should be. I looked around to see I was in my bed at Emmett's and could hear people shifting around in the house.

"What time is it?" I said croakily.

"Midday. I think Alice just woke up as well." He kissed my head tenderly.

"You knocked us out?"

"Sorry, gorgeous. It was the only way you'd be able to rest."

"It's okay. I'm sorry you had to see me like that."

"I'm not. I'm here for the good and the bad. And there'll be more good, I promise."

It was far too light a word, but this situation was truly bizarre. Surreal in the most unimaginable way. This didn't seem like my life I was waking up in.

"What a bloody mess."

Edward didn't reply to that.

We used Charlie's as a base for funeral planning and the beginnings of the other hideous tasks required after a sudden death. Alice and I were expecting to learn a lot more about our mother in the coming weeks and months as we tidied up her affairs. She didn't have any other family to assist. Charlie had already called the funeral planner, and I was grateful to him for helping out when he didn't really owe her anything. I knew he did what he did in those days for us and for the memory of the time when he loved the woman who gave him his three girls.

I spent a little more of the daytime at Charlie's after Renee died. Emmett was doing well, and he didn't need his repair hampered by my plunge back into sorrow. Edward went wherever I went. When I didn't want him to leave me at night Em realized my hesitation and told him he should stay.

The day before Renee's small funeral service, Edward was in Charlie's kitchen making coffee while I sat quietly with my dad in the lounge. Flowers had arrived for me from Edward's close colleagues at the hospital, and Angela had dropped off a whole lot of baking for the wake. We were doing what we did amidst dealing with the comings and goings and decision-makings: sitting hopelessly wondering what the hell to do. Charlie didn't ever talk much about his feelings. He had a very obvious look about him when he was proud or happy, and/or holding back proud or happy tears. I never wanted to see the sad, defeated version of my father again. I needed so very much for him to continue his life at peace and content once more._ I_ was so very much _him_, and in turn I also derived so much of my own contentment from his. It didn't seem fair that just because a man was a father, he had to hold himself together and resume his "before" characteristics to a greater degree than those of us who were merely children.

Charlie had his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands when I looked up at the sound of his voice next to me.

"There's this part of me that feels like I must have failed you as a father somewhere along the line. I was gifted these three beautiful, talented girls. Nothing could have been more perfect than my family. It took me by surprise when things started unraveling thanks to your mother's influence. But you three proved me right in my faith in your abilities to stick together and carry on. I thought you were untouchable. Maybe I should have protected you more than I did. I don't know how it would have helped. But a father feels like he should be able to stop a drunk driver, bubble-wrap a pregnant daughter, keep the mother of his children alive…"

"Daddy, _stop_. You couldn't have done anything about those things. I wish the same, and I couldn't have done anything either. Look at me," I said, turning his cheek to me. "You've been a wonderful father. That's a gross understatement; we never wanted for anything, and we couldn't have asked for anyone better than the man you are. Rose, Alice, and I felt _loved_. Truly loved, and unquestionably treasured. There is no greater blessing for a little girl than to have that connection with her daddy. So stop questioning yourself. Alice and I are still here, and we're going to be okay. We can't have you trying to change on us now. You're the one true thing in our lives."

"I hope so. I hope you know all that. I know what happened with Renee was hard on you, and I didn't want my resentment of her to affect you girls, but it was tough. This just wasn't how it was supposed to be."

I sighed and let him draw me into a hug.

"In the past five months, I've learned that some things will be how they're supposed to be, and they'll be great. And some things won't, and you have to take what you can from that and try to not let it kill you."

"When did you get so wise?" He smiled and kissed the top of my head.

"From being surrounded by wise people."


	31. Chapter 31

"_Our lives can't be measured by our final years, of this I am sure."_

- _Nicholas Sparks, __The Notebook_

**31**

Call me cold-hearted, ungrateful, any of those sorts of words. Tell me I didn't understand what it was like to be a mother, but I'd probably tell you I'd seen enough of other mothers to refute that. The point was that my mother's death was a whole different beast to deal with than my sister's.

I was used to living without her. I was used to not hearing from her. We had even speculated that that asshole would kill her either physically or mentally eventually. The general absence of her wasn't going to bear down on my everyday life all that much. Not like it did with my sister. The timing of it, so soon after Rose, was more of the shock than the act itself. The struggle was with the base tragedy of all of it. The tragedy of her life from when she closed the door on Charlie's house and left her husband, to the moment she opened the door of that asshole's motel room, in the wrong place at the wrong time.

We grieved in a similar way to how we had with Rose, don't get me wrong. Ben had kept me focused in the aftermath of Rose's death. Five months later, Alice and I could do little else but cry together. We didn't know what else to do. It had been a long and tumultuous relationship of love and hate for Charlie, but when the first woman he loved died, he couldn't not grieve the loss of her too. He sat with us, hugged us, shook his head in confusion at what had befallen our family.

And when the fog of tears at the horror and sadness dried out, Alice and I bashed out every scenario, every emotion, every what-if, every sadness, every happiness. There were happinesses. We wouldn't begrudge her that. The conclusion we came to was that we couldn't have done much differently. Even if we got a second chance, knowing we would lose her, we still couldn't have done much differently. Over the years, we had reached out to her when we could, until it became fruitless and we let her dictate when she wanted us. We had done everything we could to try and wake her up to the reality of Phil. We'd fed her so many home truths, and she'd deny, deny, deny. If she ended a phone call by saying "love you," we said "you too." What more was there?

Would I miss her? In a way I guess I would. I knew deep down inside that along the road, Renee would have managed a few more of those random moments of motherly brilliance. Would I have her back as the person she was with the relationship we had? In a fucking second. Despite her shortcomings, she was my mother. She was beautiful. She had an unfortunate upbringing, an unfortunate change of heart in her thirties, made a poor choice and was polluted by a man in a way she didn't deserve. Inside of her was a kind soul that had birthed and loved three little girls. I loved that person. It was the person she had become that I was not at all fond of. But she didn't deserve to die, and she didn't deserve to die so brutally. We were under the thumb of death, where the pain and injustice was insurmountable, and you couldn't do a fucking thing to change it.

We buried Renee in a plot next to her parents. It rained that day, steady Seattle drizzle that did nothing to help keep our spirits up. What did help was the support that surrounded us. Edward, with his arm around my waist to keep me steady, an umbrella sheltering us in his other hand. His parents, Carlisle and Esme, stood behind us. Their warmth and kindness had been obvious immediately when they arrived at Charlie's to give me their condolences the evening prior. Alice held my hand at my right, with Charlie just behind us with a hand on each of our shoulders. Jasper and his parents were on her other side, Emmett, Ben, Jude, and Bruce stood opposite. A few other friends and family hovered in the background.

I tried not to look at that awful hole in the ground when that stupid varnished box with its shiny bronze handles started to disappear. This time it wasn't so much the box that bothered me. It was the hole, with the fake grass folded around its edges to disguise the fact that below was muddy brown dark oblivion. I hoped that if I didn't look, it wouldn't suck me into its vortex of wastefulness. I couldn't afford to lose any more bits of me into the earth or up into the sky. I needed to be here. I needed to be here for the family left behind, and the love who stood at my side. I needed to be here.


	32. Chapter 32

"_I'm in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we're all doomed and that there will come a day when our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will swallow the only earth we'll ever have, and I am in love with you."_

_John Green, The Fault In Our Stars_

**32**

I imagine Edward couldn't quite believe what he'd gotten himself into. He'd asked me for coffee and taken a chance on a relationship with a girl who was having – or going to have – the most emotional year of her life. In the extreme. I had learned not to underestimate him by now, though. He was unflappable.

At that point, he knew everything there was to know about me – or at least my history and the "me" who was going through this crap. I was looking forward to him getting to know the "me" who wasn't. I was desperate for unburdened happiness and normal couple activities like concerts and vacations and not avoiding movies that might make me cry. I knew I could give him that, but magically shifting the weight of two horrors from me seemed like it would be a slowly nurtured and complex spell rather than a flippant wave of the wand. When Alice and I came out the other side of our analysis of our mother's life and death, Edward of course found the most accurate conclusion.

"She wasn't yours to solve or yours to fix, Bella. You weren't the mother, she was. And no matter how satisfying or not the relationship was, that's all it comes down to. You were her daughter, and you did what you could. She told you she loved you, and no matter the actual strength of her sentiment or yours, you told her you loved her too. That's what she knew. That's what she died knowing."

Again with the perfect words and his extraordinary mind. The greatest joy of Edward was that beyond this beautiful exterior was the most unprecedented interior. I didn't know souls like his existed, and I had known some remarkable people, a number of them I got to call family. But to happen upon this man and find what I found…I knew that would be the greatest discovery of my life. I knew he was my future. If there was any comfort that would show me I would come out of this year with anything to look forward to, it was that knowledge.

By the time Charlie's house had cleared of the small group of wake guests, I was a bit of a zombie.

"What do you want to do, gorgeous?" Edward whispered into my ear, tucking my hair behind my shoulder. He wouldn't have meant it to be seductive, but Edward had a habit of being unknowingly seductive.

"Take me back to your place?"

"Whatever you want." A kiss against my ear.

I woke up entangled in sheets and Edward the following morning. I'd managed a reasonable amount of sleep, only one nightmare creeping in but abated by Edward stirring me awake then holding me tighter.

I needed him when I woke up. I needed to be as close as possible and speak to him via my body when I couldn't give him words. It was gratitude, desire, passion, love. I wanted those things at the forefront, not the rest of it. Edward slept naked and I could feel nothing but skin encouraging me.

I reached behind me underneath the sheets to find him hard against his stomach. I knew he would have tried to ignore it if I hadn't been the instigator. But my tear ducts were all dried out for now, my shoulders still heavy, my head still sore post-crying and shock, but there was this clarity that was all things Edward. I stroked him a few times as an indulgent moan vibrated against me. Pushing him onto his back, I rolled then hitched my leg over his body to cover him with mine. He let me take the lead as I worked him over, showing his support for my movements with hands smoothing forcefully over my hips, before ruining both of us with his hands palming my tits. There were no perfect words said, just perfect breaths, perfect gasps, perfect satisfied moans.

Not long after we got up, there was a knock at the door. I was sitting at the kitchen counter with an orange juice. I hoped it wasn't anyone who would mind my grey sweatpants and tank top, plain face and bed hair. I heard Edward greeting someone at the door, shortly followed by his mom appearing in the open plan living room.

"Hi, Bella. Nice to see you again, sweetheart." Of course it would be his mother: it was the first time I hoped I actually looked like I'd just buried a relative, not been buried in bed with her son.

"Hi, Esme." I was about to apologize for looking like a wreck but decided she seemed so nice she'd probably refute it anyway.

She said something to Edward about where his dad was. I loved her voice, so soft and calming. I was trying to pay attention to more of the details this time around. It took me so many meetings to properly notice all of Edward after Rose died. If I had had my wits about me when I first met him, he would have completely knocked me off my feet, had my jaw on the floor, blown me away, destroyed my underwear…

"So, I consider ice cream to be an anytime food, so how do you feel about a bit of cookies and cream for lunch with me?" She pulled a tub out of a brown grocery bag; her smile was so genuine and warming, I had found where Edward got his good graces.

"Sounds good, thanks." I did my best to match her smile, but the corners of my mouth let me down when they twitched downward from being forced into an emotion they couldn't manage at the moment. Edward kissed my cheek and told me he was going to take a quick shower. I watched the form of his back and ass as he left the kitchen. Esme was smiling a different sort of smile when I looked back to her, and I knew I'd been caught.

She handed me a spoon and popped the lid off the tub, angling it toward me to take a scoop. No bowls, no pretenses. This woman might be as perfect as her son. After we had started to make a good dent in the Ben & Jerry's, she broke the comfortable silence.

"I won't ask how you're doing, honey. But I do want to tell you that, even though you don't know me so well, my phone is always answered, my doorbell always rings, and my car always knows how to get to Seattle. If you need more people to borrow some strength from, I'd like to be one of them."

I'd met Esme for the first time two days ago. Already she was so open to me. It wasn't so much her kindness itself that renewed the tears in my eyes. It was how fucking different she was from Renee. When she moved around the counter and drew me into her arms as if she'd been hugging me for years, it hit me that as much as I had denied my need for a mother, the idea of Esme who fitted and exceeded the mold of _being_ a mother was suddenly more desirable than it ever had been. And I felt so guilty. The soil was still loose and fresh at the cemetery, and I was sitting there thinking of how much better this woman was at fulfilling the stereotypes I had sworn I didn't want or need. Turned out maybe I did want them.


	33. Chapter 33

"_To be fully seen by somebody, then, and be loved anyhow - this is a human offering that can border on miraculous."_

― _Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed_

**33**

Between the Swan, McCarty, and Hale households, we now had lasagna, shepherd's pie, pasta bakes, and casseroles overflowing from our kitchens. If you could freeze and re-heat it, we had it. Fortunately, Jasper had a huge chest freezer in their garage that absorbed some of the stockpile. The gifts of dinners and home-baked goods were actually a relief. Getting your head around cooking a dish didn't really come easily at times like this. My one attempt after Rose had failed miserably. The onions and garlic got so burnt while I was staring blankly into the pantry that they were nearly on fire when I finally turned around. I had managed to make purees, veggies and basic baby delicacies for Ben when Rose's freezer supply ran out. It was simple enough for me to maintain clarity – anything for Ben helped me to function more humanly.

The night after the funeral, Esme and Carlisle joined us with Alice and Jasper for lasagna ala Aunt Maggie. She was a great cook, so Charlie grabbed hers out of the pile especially. I helped him set the table on auto-pilot, knowing the Cullens wouldn't expect anything fancy, but I knew we could do better than on our knees on the couch or standing at the kitchen bench as had been common recently. I should have known it would be unlike Esme to show up empty-handed. Not only did she bring garlic bread and a salad, but apparently after our ice cream lunch, she had visited Pike Place Market and cooked up a storm in Edward's kitchen. The woman was a saint, bringing a bag stocked with little containers of homemade baby food for me to take to Emmett's.

Ben had a slight cold – checked and confirmed as such by Edward when he was there that afternoon with me – so Em had opted to stay home and skip dinner. To be honest, I was present but barely. I was a quiet observer, enjoying the casual interaction between my family and Edward's. I of course wished that they hadn't met under these circumstances. At another time there might have been more banter, more laughter, more input from Alice and me. She smiled softly at me across the table when we moved together to clear the plates and find something to serve for dessert.

"He's good for you, Bella," she said to me in the kitchen. "He's just good in general, but you two together, I get the sense that that makes him even better."

"He's good for me, but am I good for him?" I sighed.

"Girl, don't." She gave me her stern mama look. "Sure it might have been more romantic if you'd met before all this, who knows? A connection is a connection though, and sucky timing doesn't make you any less good for him. I know you know this. Don't give me that doubt shit again."

"Ah, Alice. You're a breath of fresh air with your wayward mouth."

She nodded her strong agreement with her mouth now full of a spoon and ice cream, which she had just scooped into bowls.

"I know I can be good to him. And it feels like he's going to be around long enough for me to show him that. He's just…important. I don't want to lose him."

"You won't. He's smitten. And I know that from the way he looks at you, as well as from the little birdy who told me so." She tapped her nose as if to say _I know something you don't know_ and nudged my side with her elbow. I guess Edward had said something to Jasper. _This was one of those moments Rose should have been here for. She would have flicked me on the ass with a tea towel. _

I was being silly. I hoped. He hadn't so much as hinted that this bothered him or that I was a hindrance that he wanted to drop – but now couldn't until it was socially acceptable to break up with a girl post-sister/mother dying. Edward loved me. My mind was tired and sad and emotionally steamrolled, but that didn't change that he loved me. This was just round two of "day-by-day, things will get better." Hopefully this time there wouldn't be a round three to thwart my progress.

Edward was going to have breakfast with his parents before they headed back to Forks the following day, and I felt like I should just let my exhaustion take me up to my old familiar bed at Charlie's. When I'd asked why his parents weren't staying in one of his spare rooms, he said that while they usually would, this time they thought he might need his space with me. I didn't know they made people like the Cullens, but I was increasingly glad that I had a chance to have them as part of my life. I didn't want to screw this up. Edward's kiss to my temple as he pulled me against his side and said goodbye lingered long after he left.


	34. Chapter 34

"_What is an 'instant' death anyway? How long is an instant? Is it one second? Ten? The pain of those seconds must have been awful as her heart burst and her lungs collapsed and there was no air and no blood to her brain and only raw panic. What the hell is instant? Nothing is instant. Instant rice takes five minutes, instant pudding an hour. I doubt that an instant of blinding pain feels particularly instantaneous."_

_- Looking for Alaska, __John Green_

**34**

I had one more bad day.

I say "one more bad day" because I decided the day after that was what I wanted it to be. The last one.

I was at Charlie's when I woke. The room was light from the mid-morning sun and the house was quiet, as he'd gone back to work with a five a.m. start. I hadn't even really been asleep, more in that awful state of dreaming from which no rest comes. The way my brain managed to contort the deaths of Rose and Renee still scares me. It terrified me at the time. What I hadn't let myself release during the day manifested in bad dreams when the lights went out. I was trying to be strong, but at night, I was weak. I shouldn't have let Edward go home the evening prior, but I couldn't use him as security. Maybe it was a good thing I hadn't gone back to Emmett's either. It prevented me from using Ben as a Band-Aid, rather than the reality check I got from being alone.

I had startled myself out of my nightmare at the horrifically clear image of Rose matted with blood. All of the worse case scenarios had happened in my mind that night. Rose didn't die instantly, Renee was trapped in the same car and couldn't hide from the bullet that was fired at her, the car didn't stop and Ben's side was crushed by the lamppost. Thank God I woke up before I saw any more of that part. The first thing I saw was her photo by my bedside, no blood, eyes smiling. A minor comfort. I hated that the dream was more like reality than the picture and began to cry tears that I thought had long dried out.

I cried until the lack of decent sleep and the pain in my head had me catatonic. I vaguely registered the distant sounds of phones ringing and my cell beeping. I must have drifted off, because time seemed to have passed when I heard the door crash open into the wall. My eyes felt closed over with puffiness, but I managed to see Alice as she was running toward me. She grabbed me into her arms in the bed.

"You didn't answer the phone! I thought you were…" she scolded me through her sobs.

I hoped I hadn't rubbed my bad day off on her, too. She'd been strong enough before now to know that this current pattern didn't mean we were all going to die this year. Today that sense seemed to have escaped her – though I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't have panicked if our positions had been reversed.

"I even called Edward and he said he didn't know; he said you should be here. I couldn't help but worry."

Sense was all very well until your baby sister got you scared.

I wondered if I needed meds, counseling, a psych ward… They were scary words. I needed my sister back. I needed my mom to have not been shot by a man we told her was terrible for her. It was just a bad day. The last one. I couldn't get her back, or help my mom. So it had to be the last one. I wouldn't drown in this; I wouldn't.

Shortly after Edward turned up, his face racked with a worry that should never befall his handsome features, I decided I needed to do a session with a grief counselor. It was partly for me and partly for everyone else's peace of mind. I had been conflicted because I didn't want to lie or hide from Edward that I wasn't entirely okay, but I didn't want him _thinking_ I wasn't okay either. I wanted to seem strong and stable despite it all. Our relationship was new, and I guess I was self-conscious. He was realistic and perceptive – he would have known the brave face had cracks. I just didn't want to lose him because I turned out to be too fragile or too broken.

I managed to get an afternoon with Emmett's counselor two days later. I decided that I found talking to my family more effective than to Harry Clark. However, the best thing he did for me was to give me techniques, tips, and advice for the dreams, dealing with the memories, and finding myself again. I told him I didn't want to medicate. Even sleeping pills were a last resort. I told him how my mother had used sleeping pills, and one night after we had a heated discussion, she shut herself in her room. When I went to check on her she told me meekly that she'd taken more pills than she should have. I had to tell her that she was better than that, better than him, and then I had to sit there to make sure it definitely wasn't enough medication to cause her more harm than a heavy night's sleep. I was torn between shocked and furious that I was once again the grown-up in the situation. It was so wrong that I was in that position: I was thirteen, and it was the last time I bothered going to stay with her in Phoenix.

He of course wanted to talk about my feelings surrounding that experience, but I'd dealt with those long ago. Those things weren't secrets for me; my family discussed it openly, and I had left the older Renee dramas behind long ago. I took from them the lessons I needed to: don't stay with her again, don't take sleeping pills, don't drink so much that you make a fool out of yourself like her scumbag boyfriend. We moved on to talking about every holistic method Harry had in his grief-management arsenal.

I would start yoga. Herbal tea before bed. Watch alcohol consumption at night. Do one thing just for me every week. Keep writing my thoughts down. Keep going for walks with Ben. Try to reintroduce things I did "before" gradually. Music, dinners out, developing my career. Keep being open in my relationships. Don't feel like people will judge me for getting upset. Don't feel guilty when Edward makes me happy. Reaffirmations, mental imagery, books I could read. If this plan failed, or if I wanted to talk more about my mommy issues, I promised I would return for another appointment. He penciled me in for a month's time, just in case.


	35. Chapter 35

"_Desire makes life happen. Makes it matter. Makes everything worth it. Desire is life. Hunger to see the next sunrise or sunset, to touch the one you love, to try again. 'Hell would be waking up and wanting nothing,' he agrees."_

― _Karen Marie Moning, __Shadowfever_

**35**

Edward had an amazing DVD collection. Unfortunately some of my favorites would be like kryptonite at the moment, so I resorted to his selection of Pixar and Disney. I was starting to feel like a bit of a bum – movies and sweatpants on a weekday. I'd barely even done this in my college days. Then that annoying but correct part of my brain chirped that my mother was shot ten days ago, and I'd sink further into the cushions. This was okay, for now.

Em had the week of Renee's funeral off work, so he basically told me to do what I needed to do and not worry about him and Ben. What I needed to do was spend the couple of days post-counseling alternating between Edward's pool deck with its view of the Sound, his couch, and being spooned by him in his bed. I resolved that after Alice and I had settled Renee's affairs, I would begin to put more of the advice I'd been given into practice. I'd done a lot of thinking in the June sunshine the day prior, and today I was already feeling like my minor meltdown had been somewhat cathartic and productive, if you could call it that.

Familiar hands slipped over my shoulders and warm lips kissed against my neck.

"I like you in my house," Edward said softly.

"I like being in your house," I replied. He moved around the couch to sit next to me. "I do need to question your taste in movies, though. You're a sensitive new-age kinda guy, I'm sure, but why do you own _Tangled_?"

He laughed, music to my ears.

"The kids at the hospital kept going on about Rapunzel and that movie. I had to buy it so I could engage in some very important Disney discussion."

"Fuck."

"Ha, maybe not the response I was expecting."

"That's, ah…" I leaned over and kissed him instead of using gushy words about how divine he was. Edward made me more certain that, amongst the frogs, there were certainly some princes in the world. My grandfather, Charlie, Edward – they were all cut from a very good cloth.

"Let me come with you on Sunday," he said, his forehead resting against my own.

He was referring to the trip Alice, Jasper, and I were making to Phoenix to sort out the remnants of Renee's life.

"You've already taken so much time off on my account. Save your leave for something great, like a vacation together."

He brushed his thumb against my lips, and there was that amazing moment of quiet like you saw in the movies where love passed from one person to the other almost telepathically.

"I like it when you talk about the future," he whispered.

"I like the idea of the future with you in it."

"You know you don't need to be scared, right?" He paused, and if possible his face became even more convincing. "I'm _so_ in love with you, Bella."

"The feeling is so much more than mutual, Edward."

He kissed me again, the combination of his warm mouth and enchanting words had me wanting to be much, much closer to him.

"I like you on my couch," he said, justifiably pleased with himself, with us.

"You like me everywhere today." I smiled and brushed my fingers against his cheek.

"Ah, a smile. I like it even more now."

I couldn't _not_ smile at him, he made me forget myself.

"Is it forward or insensitive or inappropriate to say I'd like you especially somewhere else in particular today? Don't answer that – it is insensitive and inappropriate," he said.

"I'd like me underneath you on this couch today, if that's what you were thinking."

"Mmhm, I'd like you very much underneath me. You're good sitting there all goddess-in-sweatpants too, but I'd also like them off you, on the floor…" His voice trailed off. I didn't want him to think playfulness wasn't okay. He was trying so hard to read me and be careful, but playfulness was perfect right now. I needed it.

"Take them off, please?" I asked, a slight waver in my voice betraying my determination.

He didn't waste time as his mouth carefully moved to mine, and his dexterous surgeon's fingers found their way down my legs twisted in thick cotton fabric.

"Then take off yours," I instructed in a whisper. "Then let me like you above me with you inside me."

"That's not _like_." He was doing things against my neck that were far too good.

"I know; that's love," I agreed. "I love you in me." He chose that moment to slip inside, filling me as I shifted farther under him on the couch.

Feeling this good wasn't something I tried to allow myself anymore, it was a necessity. It was _life_, and I planned on living and breathing and exalting in the perfect human connection of it.


	36. Chapter 36

"_Grief does not change you, Hazel. It reveals you."_

― _John Green, __The Fault in Our Stars_

**36**

I didn't have a lot of love for Phoenix.

Being older and firmer in their free will meant that Rose and Alice had never had to do obligatory trips to stay with Renee. Granted, I only had to do three. The first time, she tried to get all serious and preachy on me about the separation. I hadn't seen her for ten months after she left, and she already seemed like a different person to me, so when she made it even more awkward for me, I bawled my eyes out and insisted that Rose book me an early flight home. I left the next day.

The second time, her asshole boyfriend almost put me off ever seeing either of them ever again for the rest of my life. As well as being what Alice fondly referred to as a "cunt" – the only person we reserved that word for – he also liked his alcohol an awful lot, making him even more intolerable. I believe I even used the Hollywood moment of "you're not my father" on him, before storming up the stairs. He had a mouth on him a sailor couldn't dream of; he thought he was hysterically funny with his dry and dirty humor, and he shoved Renee about when he got fucked off at the tiniest things. Between that and the loud banging of the headboard against the wall – something at twelve I hadn't been exposed to before – they were really doing a swell job of including Renee's youngest kid in their new lifestyle. The third time was the sleeping pill fun. That was the end of that.

Needless to say, Phoenix had always been associated with the shit-storm that went along with Renee. This trip was no different. Renee's retail business had finally been run into the ground, and shutting it down was managed by a receivership and liquidation company. Her lawyer informed us that after some investigation, an account that Renee hadn't known about had been discovered in the scumbag's name. Turned out the money he'd been skimming from her business and her pocket had ended up there and was apparently now rightfully ours. It hadn't been easy for the lawyer to solve, and I certainly couldn't get my head around all the complications that Renee and her thieving boyfriend had managed to create for themselves. It was his dodgy dealings that had us in the position we were in now. The scumbag owed the other gunman a whole lost of cash, which results in weapons being pulled when you piss some one off and string them along as much as he had.

Alice and I didn't really want anything to do with the contents of his secret account. We instructed him to donate it to various charities. Her house had been mortgaged against the business, so the bank put that on the market. It had been brought with our grandfather's money, so we decided we'd split any profit outside the mortgage repayment into college funds for any kids Alice and I may have, and for Ben. The rest of her will was mostly my grandmother's diamonds, which Renee had had made into a monstrous pyramid of a ring rather than dividing them between her girls as my grandmother had wanted. Alice was taking it to a jeweler in Seattle to have them removed from the setting.

Between Alice, Jasper, and me, we managed to clear out her house, boxing up any family heirlooms to courier back to Seattle, and donating the rest to local shelters and charities. It was one of the strangest things I'd ever had to do. We were basically extinguishing the physical remnants of a person from the world. The finality of it was bizarre.

My phone beeped as I was loading a few hundred pairs of shoes into the rental van to deliver to Goodwill and the Salvation Army.

_I miss you x_

_Man, I really, really miss you back. x_

_Is it going ok today?_

_As well as it could, I suppose. It's harder than I expected._

_You're stronger than you realize, gorgeous girl._

_I give you a lot of credit for that. x_

_I wish you knew it was inherent. Whatever I do for you is just a bonus._

_You're perfect, Dr. C. So looking forward to coming home tomorrow._

_Can't wait. Swim and dinner at mine if you're up to it. Talk tonight. xx_

Sitting on the plane back to Seattle the next day, I found myself thinking a lot about the concept of closure. People always talk about getting closure from whatever troubles you. While I wanted the ache to dissipate, I didn't want closure. Not from this.

I wanted the life of Rose to remain open to me; all that she was, my memories with her, her image, everything. I didn't want the cover on the enormous volume of her short life to ever close on its pages. It should remain open on the coffee table for all to see, able to be leafed through without lifting off the heavy bound front or ever hearing the thud of it close when you were finished looking.

Renee felt a little different. With her it was more like her death had really been the final page in her book. Where Rose lived on in Ben, the intertwining with Renee was almost less involved. She'd been such an elusive character in both our story and her own. She was almost unwritable. From her own discombobulated mind, to our lack of understanding of that mind, I didn't see how her pages could remain open with any soulful or constructive purpose. I wanted closure of the questions, the analysis, the lack of understanding. I wanted the place in my heart that held space for the woman who gave me life to remain open to her in relative simplicity. It wasn't that I didn't want to remember her, I just needed to remember her a certain way.

Rose had been taken much too soon, and it truly seemed that her youth and necessity held her present. She was free, and in another place, but that place was very much with us. I sensed her everywhere. Not in a particularly concrete or supernatural way, more like she was a certain grain of weight in the air, or a tiny hint of fragrance. It was hard to describe without sounding as though you were losing your mind or imagining spirits. I wasn't the spiritual type, but the death of loved ones imparted things in you that you weren't looking for, or expecting to find. I concluded that Renee had herself found closure. When they said, "Rest in peace," that was what I associated with Renee. She had closure from a situation she didn't know how to get herself out of – because deep down I truly believed Renee wasn't happy with where she ended up with that man. It was a god-awful way to escape – nothing but tragic and fucking unnecessary – yet, if you could find one modicum of contentment on her final page, it was that my mother was finally resting at peace.

That was the only sense I could make of the difference. I felt slightly more ready to live again, after finding where their place was in my days. At least that sounded good in theory. I only hoped the reality of how I would think of them would follow through as gently reasoned as my mind had decided it should.


	37. Chapter 37

**There's about ten chapters left…it would be super, super amazing if all of you said hi a couple of times (or more!) before the end by clicking the little review button at the bottom. Emotions depicted by punctuation marks or garbled letters are as welcome as complete sentences. Thank you for being awesome x**

**-x-x-x-**

"'_D'you know what happens when you hurt people?' Ammu said. 'When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That's what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.'"_

_- Arundhati Roy, __The God of Small Things_

**37**

Readjusting to life in the aftermath of Renee's death was an odd experience. It felt like we'd already done this part and been these people. The short time frame between two sudden deaths seemed to make the responses heightened and the process more surreal. I was looking forward to the time when a doubly sorrowful look of pity didn't cross people's faces when they saw me. It was inherently worse than the singly sorrowful one. Those who were closer to us lost that look as soon as they realized that we hadn't lost the plot and become unfamiliar zombies after burying two immediate family members.

I clung to Charlie's existence in my life even more than I had before. I'd go to the house and sit as close as I could to him while he was watching television, or watch him in the kitchen as he heated up his dinner, or listen to him even more attentively as he told me about work or Sue or fishing. We had always been close so it wouldn't have appeared any different to him, but in my head I was absorbing everything about my dad, building my memory bank for a day when memories were all I had.

Despite these little anomalies, I finally felt like each day I was becoming a bit stronger. Finally. Day by day, my shoulders opened up rather than being closed down into my body in defeat and protection. My eyes lost a glint of darkness and started to look more familiar in the mirror. The dark circles around them lightened, my cheeks got some color back and the corners of my mouth didn't feel burdened when I smiled. My heart was the biggest change. Where it was once so obvious in my chest for it's lackluster weight, it began to feel like the corner of it that had been brightened by my love for Edward was spreading and infiltrating the rest of its broken mass.

All of these changes made being with Edward that much freer. I almost felt like I was being gradually liberated. The "normal" I had wanted with him came to us week by week, only it wasn't "normal", it was brilliant. I made him laugh. I made him smirk, smile and grin like a fool. I made him sigh in contentment. I made him moan in pleasure. The fact that I could do all of that was simple bliss. My sense of humor, my passion…it was a glimpse again of Bella "before." I couldn't wait for it to be so much more than just a glimpse.

The morphing of me and of our relationship had us even more magnetized. We found ourselves trying to let it be new and progressive, rather than succumbing constantly to the mad desire to be together whenever we had the chance. I was about done with progressive and wanted to throw caution to the wind. It was like gravity between us; something we couldn't fight. When you couldn't get enough of something so good, what was the point of holding back?

"How do I do it, Bella?" Alice asked, breaking me from my reverie. My cheeks felt flushed, a familiar side effect of thinking about Edward.

We were sitting in the park with Ben and Jasper's niece, who was trying to help him build a castle in the sandpit. He was still more at the sand-eating stage, but her attempts were sweet. Little Olivia was staying with them for the weekend.

"Do what?" I asked.

"How do I be a mom and not turn out like ours did?"

Her words didn't shock me because I'd thought them plenty of times myself.

"How do you not fuck-up your kids and have them dislike you and talk about you behind your back?" she added.

I laughed a little. Wasn't that the million-dollar question?

"Do you think if every mother or father in the world thought that becoming their parents was a given, that the population would still be growing? We make our own way, Ali, even if they did create us. You're not Renee, and she wasn't the norm. Of every person we know, I can't think of another mother even remotely like her. You'll be all her good parts and even more of your own. You'll learn from her mistakes and your hurts, but you'll also know what's too much, what's not enough, and when to stand back."

She knew deep down I was right. It was still scary, though, and even people with the most stable upbringing needed a little reassurance.

"You know how I know?" We weren't looking at each other; Ben's giggles at Olivia had diverted our eyes. "Because you did a damn fine job raising me, and I wouldn't have had it any other way, or traded you for any mother on the planet."

She took my hand on the park bench and we watched as Olivia helped Ben over the lip of the sandpit and encouraged him to chase her through the grass. His little legs were getting steadier with each day that passed. Maybe mine and Alice's were, too.

"Besides. If you do happen to suck, the kid will have a kick ass auntie to moan about you to."

I squeezed her hand and she pulled me against her playfully, coming to rest against my shoulder. One sister was a shit load better than none. I'd thank my lucky stars every day for Alice.


	38. Chapter 38

"_I want her to know that there will never be a story that she won't be a part of, that she's everywhere like sky."_

_- Jandy Nelson, The Sky is Everywhere_

**38**

We had a lineup of birthdays in our family. Ben in June, Alice in July, Edward, I had learned, was August, Jasper and me both September, Rose and Renee in November, Emmett, December, and Charlie in February, only a few weeks before we had lost Rose.

I was conscious of making sure Alice's birthday was special for her, as I knew Jasper was too, of course. Edward's was already on my mind as well, amongst park visits, diapers and days on Bainbridge for the filming of the screenplay. I was looking forward to sharing it with him, and I already had a number of things planned.

Alice wanted simple, which was understandable. Jasper and I planned for drinks and presents at their place, followed by dinner at her favorite Italian place next to the Market. Ben's godmother Sarah offered to leave her hubby with their kids and babysit Ben for the night so that Emmett could join us for dinner.

Charlie came by to pick up Em and me so we could both drink. Edward was coming straight from work. We sat in the kitchen while Em was showing Sarah where all Ben's necessities were.

"So, how's it going with the dashing doctor?" Charlie asked me.

"Did you just use the word 'dashing,' Charlie Swan?"

"Come on, even your dad can't ignore that he's rather a refined and handsome guy. You'd probably have some blasphemous type of slang for it no doubt." He side-eyed me. The father of three girls had heard his fair share of incomprehensible talk in his time.

I laughed at him, a shocked laugh that bordered on hysterical when it resonated around the kitchen. He's so funny when he's frank and has these little heart-to-hearts that are un-tinged by sorrow. It was so like before and I loved it. It didn't make me reminiscent, it just made me pleased that Charlie seemed to be in a better place.

"I can't even pretend to warn you against this one, Bells." He sighed, but the discussion was still light. "I think he might be a keeper, if you do as well of course. A bit of a catch as your Grandma would have said. But, I guess…you know. Be careful and all that. You're still number one, no matter how _dashing_ he is."

"Thanks, Dad. I think he's pretty all right too." My face betrayed my understatement. He knew it, but said no more.

Dinner was delicious and talk flowed easily amongst us. It was almost like old times, apart from the glaringly obvious difference of one new face and one missing face. One of those was a very welcome change, and I absorbed the little moments like Edward's hand finding mine under the table. He got along so well with Jasper and Emmett, I could see the three of them becoming firm friends. I couldn't stop the ever present echo of _if only Rose were here _from filtering through. No one mentioned it, but it was written on everyone's faces from time to time.

Some of Renee's case had been wrapped up that week, but we didn't discuss it. We had avoided anything we could to do with the aftermath of the guy who was there when she got shot and who had fired one of the bullets. We knew the summary, but other than that, we needed to cleanse the unnecessary emotional baggage of that situation. All I needed to know was that as of that week, he was staying behind bars, and the scumbag boyfriend was six feet under somewhere.

Edward drove me back to his place after dinner, something that had been happening quite frequently of late. I walked past the script with my name on it laying on his coffee table. He'd been reading it and talking to me about my passion for books, film, and writing. I had partially closed this part of me off, but I knew now that it was important to stay true to what I had loved and what Rose had been so proud of me for. It was always strange that it had been a side of me that Renee had never bothered to know. Now, with Edward, it was awesome to be able to share it with someone outside of my family who was just as enthused and supportive.

He caught my hand as I brushed past him to clean my teeth in his master bathroom.

"You've got a different glow about you today," he said softly, studying my face. His hand snaked around my hip. "I think it's partly the day at work doing something that excites you."

"I don't think I've 'glowed' at all recently, have I?"

"Only at certain times, but I don't think you know it happens. It took me a few months to decode your true faces, because I realized the one I first met had been colored by your recent experiences."

"When have I glowed?" I asked, curious.

"When you've seen me." He smiled coyly.

"I don't even think you're blowing your own trumpet by saying that." I laughed at his honesty. "I think it's probably just the truth. Well I hope it is…I want to glow when I see you. I'm glad it happens unconsciously."

"Be assured that even when you're not glowing, you're beautiful."

"Don't fill my head with cotton candy air," I whispered bashfully, rising up on my toes to place a kiss on the tip of his nose.

"I wish more people would tell you, so you knew it was true. Well, not other handsome doctors, but…"

"Shh, you goof. It only matters to me when it comes from you."

"I'll tell you all the time then."

He melted into me with his lips and body pressed close, picking me up and promptly diverting me to his bed.

Two weeks after Alice's birthday she called me with the best news we'd had in a long time. Her joy was my joy when she told me that a little Whitlock was due to join us by April.


	39. Chapter 39

"_Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering."_

― _Nicole Krauss, __The History of Love_

**39**

I had wondered if there was something in particular that would mend me in a more instantaneous way. The odd thing about sudden death was that – its suddenness. The hurt attacks you in one foul swoop, but the recovery process was nothing like that. There was no quick antidote that suited the manner in which you were poisoned to start with. I was finally doing a reasonable job of un-jumbling my mind but, as a whole, my body often felt like scrabble pieces when the board got knocked. Out of place, missing consonants and vowels to make complete words.

On the weekend of Edward's birthday, a few more letters fell into order for me. It wasn't Edward who would proactively mend me. That was a responsibility that another person should never be burdened with. It's neither fair nor wise to rely solely on another to get by. He was never that for me – a wordsmith I used to make me feel better. No, this was love. Love in its simplest and truest of forms. And that was what would mend me.

Perhaps the antithesis to death was not life, it was love. Because what was life without love anyway? You wouldn't be truly living. Piece by piece my body would begin to feel whole again. Loving Edward and loving my family and letting them love me back would give me my triple word score. A full board of letters in place, with none left to play.

Second to Edward's passion for saving lives was his passion for music. Lucky for me, his birthday weekend was a small slice of music heaven at home in Seattle. Bon Iver on Thursday night, Coldplay opened by The Lumineers on Saturday night – his actual birthday. He thought Bon Iver was sold out, but I had tickets. I'd found all their CDs in his wall of music one afternoon. He had so much music in his house, yet he never played any around me. Of course I knew why; he was holding back. He knew I loved music as much as he did. He also knew my iPod still terrified me a little. I was getting better with it; I just didn't know if I could listen to "Skinny Love" or "Fix You" without destroying a small forest's worth of Kleenex. I wanted to though – to listen and enjoy it again, not destroy forests. I would do it for him – with him – and I wouldn't be afraid of the tears if they came against my will. Concerts and music were just one more piece of our normal brilliance that I wanted to share with him. I wanted him to play his guitar for me and educate me on all of his favorite old school albums.

I didn't tell him where we were going that night. We walked from a nearby burger joint to the theatre.

"You're shitting me?" he said when we turned the corner to join the queue for entry. "Bon Iver?"

"Uh-huh." I smiled. He just looked at me speechless, then kissed his happiness into me. It was becoming our thing – conveying everything through the joining of our lips.

He held me from behind during the show and sang along with sweet whispers in my ear. I didn't cry, though I almost wondered if I had, if it wouldn't have really been from sadness but the good that had come out of it.

Saturday was a little different. I couldn't help the tears that slipped out when "Fix You" built to its chorus. It gave me chills live, and the chills were too much for me this time around. Edward held me as tight as he could, anchoring me to him.

"I love you," he whispered amongst the noise of the crowd, kissing my earlobe.

The day had been pretty perfect. Perfectly perfect, even. I had cooked him breakfast and didn't burn a thing – I was back to my old form in the kitchen with a great eggs benedict. He'd looked at me with wonder in his eyes when he'd opened his presents. I'd scoured Seattle's best music stores for some of the classics on vinyl, knowing that when his parents visited on the Sunday they were finally gifting him their old record player. I bought myself a sexy little red underwear set to wear under my outfit for the concert, knowing it would look good against his gunmetal grey bedding once we returned home.

Before we got to the underwear, there was decadent cake to deal to. I had made him my infamous lemon-lime white chocolate cake, complete with candles. He blew them out late that night, the buzz of a great show and a couple of beers mellowing between us. He gave me a face that was some sort of smirk trying to turn serious.

"How do you feel about being with an older man, Bella?"

"Oh, you're so old, Edward. Three whole years – such a sugar daddy."

"I quite like the idea of being your sugar daddy. Gives me an excuse to spoil and protect you. In a completely non-chauvinistic, non-demeaning way of course."

"Of course!" I laughed. "Quit your rambling, old man, put some cake in that gob." I picked up the slice he'd just cut and pressed it into his mouth, icing going everywhere. I licked it off my fingers as he tried to chew and swallow the huge piece.

"Jesus, that's sexy," he garbled, a couple of cake crumbs flying as he was transfixed on my mouth.

"Oh my God, swallow before you talk." He was laughing again and I was sure he was going to choke.

"Shuddupandkissme."

That was an invitation I could never refuse. He swallowed his mouthful as I licked the icing from his lower lip, tugging at it lightly with my teeth before searching out his tongue.


	40. Chapter 40

**Lovely readers your patience is requested: HSB is fully written but I have now caught up to my wonderful busy beta with updates. She is away for work and will get the last chapters to me as quick as she can. I will post as they come in. Thank you! x**

**-x-x-x-**

"_When you love you should not think you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course."_

― _Kahlil Gibran_

**40**

"He's doing really well, Bella. He plays so nicely with the other babies, and he really is just a good, happy little boy."

Ben reached his arms out to me as the other day care teacher walked him toward us. The center manager wanted to give me an update on his progress, knowing we had somewhat special concerns given Ben's recent past. He seemed to be a well-adjusted little dude though. We hoped that would continue as we started to tell him more about his mom and why she wasn't around once he started to get old enough to take it in.

He was on his second week of three morning sessions. Emmett dropped him off before work, and I collected him two days and Alice collected him the third. She'd started taking Friday afternoons off work as part of her way to get her head around what had happened and wanting some time to grow her connection with our nephew. I was definitely pleased not only for Ben's sake but also for Alice taking more care of herself during her pregnancy. Emmett worked from home on Mondays, and I had Ben for a full day on Wednesdays. It sounded logistical, but it wasn't. He fit into all of our lives very simply.

While it was easy with Ben for me to be living at Em's, I felt like it might be time to leave him to have his space without me in it. I just didn't know if that was something that he wanted yet. The reality of his house with just him and his son in it was going to be another huge change for him to adapt to. The idea of going through that myself scared me; I couldn't imagine what it would be like adjusting to not having your wife around, making your house a home.

I wasn't really keen on getting my own place, but I wondered if it was time for me to head back to Charlie's. Financially I could probably afford to move out, but after the turmoil and change of the past months, it really wasn't something I wanted to do right now. I liked having the company of Em, Charlie, or Edward, and an empty house to do what I wanted with wasn't something that appealed as much as it might have once.

Always on the mark with his timeliness, the night before Edward had broached an idea with me that I was finding difficult to get off my mind. It wasn't something I had thought would be an option yet, given we hadn't been together for all that long. He said he didn't really see the sense in waiting when he loved having me at his place and suggested that instead of going back to Charlie's, that I move in with him. The thing about him saying it was that it didn't even seem like a life-changing big deal of a proposition. It just felt like us taking the natural course that our relationship seemed to be on.

I called him once Ben and I got home that afternoon.

"Hey gorgeous." The fact that I could always here the smile in his voice down the phone line was one of my favorite little Edward details. It was becoming a long list, and I wanted to remember every one of them.

"So, I've been thinking today. I'm going to talk to Emmett and see where he's at, but perhaps I could gradually wean myself away from this place and take you up on your suggestion?"

There was a small laugh-cum-snicker down the line, and I knew he already considered my answer to have been yes when he first asked me.

"Check your handbag," he said.

"Huh?"

"Side pocket."

I unzipped the pocket inside my handbag and reached in, pulling out a packet of M&Ms. I didn't eat a lot of chocolate, but I had a very weak spot for those.

"Candy?"

"Yes, but keep looking."

I reached in and pulled out a silver key ring with an inscribed heart on it. I recognized it from browsing when we had been out to get Alice the Tiffany three key pendant for her birthday – she'd cried like a baby when she opened it, which turned out to be pregnancy hormones as well as sentimentality.

He was so sneaky…

"You couldn't just give me the key to your house, you had to give it to me on a Tiffany key ring?"

"I like to set high standards for myself and see if I can top them."

I could tell by his tone he was fucking with me.

"Edward…this is too much. I can't believe I'm saying this, but stop spoiling me."

"Bella, you're my girl. I live to spoil you when spoiling is necessary. I'm fucking excited about the prospect of you being in my house all the time. I wanted to mark the excitement with more than a dollar store key ring."

"I like being your girl," I said softly.

"I know, isn't it the best?" He laughed and totally got away with the fact that is was mostly amusement as his own teasing. "See you in two hours, gorgeous."


	41. Chapter 41

**Thank you – I keep saying it but you readers are the bee's knees. See you in review replies (wink wink nudge nudge) **

**-x-x-x-**

"_The damage was permanent; there would always be scars. But even the angriest scars faded over time until it was difficult to see them written on the skin at all, and the only thing that remained was the memory of how painful it had been."_

― _Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care_

**41**

I talked to Emmett about eventually moving out. He of course knew it was both a likelihood and a necessity. He said he generally loved having me around whether he was a grieving widower or not, so his house was always my house whenever I wanted it to be. I reassured him that nothing would change with me being there for Ben and him, no matter my living arrangements. I wasn't going to just go cold turkey either. Gradually I'd spend a little less time there and look to be fully moved in at Edward's in a couple of months or so. Though it was a way off, I already had Christmas at the back of my mind, knowing her absence would be even more present. We'd make sure to hang out with the boys as much as possible then. Rose loved Christmas, and that love grew even more once they had Ben.

Charlie was resigned to the fact that his nest had been emptied. For him it was also an inevitability. I of course felt bad about leaving Dad and our family home. Alice said she'd mentioned my departure to him, and he'd told her that if I hadn't been pushed to leave by what happened with Rose, my guilt would have kept me there far longer than it should have. I needed to feel free to be where I wanted to be and especially to progress my relationship with Edward. The truth to it was that Charlie was a big boy. While having daughters who doted on him was fantastic, he was extremely capable, and by no means lonely with all of his buddies and things building with Sue.

"I need to ask you something, but please don't think I'm being morbid. I'm just being prudent," Emmett said across the dinner table. We were being big kids and having a meal with place mats and napkins.

"Okay," I said hesitantly, raising my eyebrow at him in concerned wonder.

"Are you still okay with what Rose and I had in our wills for Ben? I've had to update mine, and I wanted to make sure that nothing has changed for you, and you still want to be his guardian if I was to…go."

"First, you're not going to 'go,' but yes. Of course."

"I know. I'm not going anywhere. But like I said: prudent." He shrugged a little.

I nodded and tried to keep eating. It had been a difficult decision for Rose and Em when they originally made it. Emmett's parents were older, ours were divorced, and I was very close to Ben from the start. It was a given that Alice would have a huge hand in his life as well, but on paper, I would be his primary guardian. It fucking sucked that these sorts of issues were a reality. A parent having to consider what might happen to their child if they weren't around anymore was an unfortunate caution. Most probably didn't even give it much thought. For someone like Emmett, it now held more weight than just caution. He'd seen how quickly life was lost before his eyes. It made it all the more unfathomable that people would actually choose not to be there, when others would give up anything to be. It was another reminder of my gratitude for Charlie's natural willingness to pick up the slack for Renee when she chose a different life.

"Thank you, by the way."

"Of course," I said sincerely.

We lightened the mood with talk of Jasper's birthday at his restaurant the next night. Charlie and Sue were coming over to babysit. We were pretty impressed with Charlie for that. He was good with Ben, but Sue obviously gave him the confidence to step up a little more where there was risk of diaper changes, tears, and the rest. I had finished eating when Emmett got another heavy question off his chest.

"What do I do about all her things, B?" he asked, pushing a piece of broccoli around his plate.

I thought about it for a moment. For months, we'd managed to avoid the lingering notion that when somebody dies you shouldn't probably keep everything they ever owned right where they left it. He was living with her all around him. While it was comforting in some ways, in others it just hurt. For him, looking at her dresses and tops and skirts and makeup and perfume in their bedroom was looking at things that she won't put on when she gets out of the shower after him in the morning. The presence of that routine had been broken. It was such a simple thing that couples took for granted each day, until you faced the tragedy of not having it anymore.

"Would it be okay if Alice and I kept them?"

I couldn't bear the idea of her belongings going to strangers and someone else wearing clothes or jewelry she had chosen or loved when we could do so without feeling masochistic in any way. I knew that like with the rest of my belongings, one day I'd have to be ruthless and throw them out or pass them on. I didn't feel like I wouldn't be able to do that. Like Em I knew I would hang on to a couple of items when the time came, and until then it was a practical solution and a temporary comfort.

"Of course. There are a few things I want. The rest are yours and Ali's."


	42. Chapter 42

**The quote in the chapter is from Jandy Nelson "The Sky is Everywhere." It's such a beautiful book that I found after I finished writing HSB and I highly recommend it.**

**-x-x-x-**

"_We're all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."_

_- Dr. Seuss_

**42**

It took me a week to get my head around the idea; then one day when Emmett was at work and Ben was at day care, I started slowly sorting through my sister's things. I treaded carefully at first, testing to see whether unsettling the position of her everyday treasures wouldn't also unhinge anything in the stability I had found.

The books by her bed that were frozen in time by their unmoving bookmarks bothered me. They needed to be finished, rather than neglected by her absence. I'd find out what happened in "The Baby Whisperer"and "Me Before You" for her and then let Alice do the same. Her perfume bottle sat with the lid off on her dresser – Emmett was keeping that. Her hairbrush with a few loose blonde hairs, her favorite MAC lipstick, the box of things that had been in the car with her that I'd brought home from the hospital, vitamins and face creams, a Polaroid slipped in the corner of the mirror of her and Emmett from a friend's wedding. What did you do with something like a hairbrush? I put anything with a question mark aside to work out another day. I guessed a few things would be going in the trash. Or maybe just to the attic for now.

Alice joined me after a couple of hours. I was sitting on the floor looking through a shoebox filled with special letters, gift cards, and random photos that Rose had kept. A lot of it was from Emmett, but there was plenty in it from the two of us as well. He would keep it safe here. I was laughing at some of the notes from her early high school days. Neil Diamond fan club…snaps of when they drew Luke Perry-style forehead lines on themselves…her love of James Dean…Madonna…a photo of the "Cranberries couch" like the one on their CD cover that she had in her bedroom before we left Forks. It all served as a reminder how very happy, popular, kind, and loved she was.

When Emmett came home with Ben, he couldn't help but smile at the sight of the two of us dressed in her denim jacket from twenty years ago, her pink jazzercise leggings and her prom dress, listening to her Bangles tape on an old cassette player we found in the garage. Ben started giggling at the high ponytail on top of my head.

"Jesus, you chicks finally lose your minds?" Emmett laughed.

Alice looked between us then nodded.

"All evidence points to yes, big bro."

The song changed to "Walk Like an Egyptian" and he cringed.

"Oh man, I'm kinda glad I wasn't with her when she played this stuff regularly."

"Come on, 'Eternal Flame' is excellent make-out music. You two spent all your early days mouth-to-mouth as it was," Alice teased.

We were away after that. Ben sat between us playing as we took a trip down memory lane, laughing and telling stories about Em and Rose's relationship, and Rose as Alice knew her before I came along or when I was too young to have been as aware. It was the freest we'd been when looking back, without a hint of solemnity about it.

Emmett went to get a beer and came back with Edward in tow, fresh from work and equally as perplexed and amused by our bedroom party. We sat there for another half hour with him before the little dude needed dinner and Alice needed to head home to the hubby.

I got out of my ridiculous outfit and decided to follow Edward back to his for the night with a small bundle of Rose's clothes to put in my new wardrobe. It was a good-sized walk-in and was definitely designed with a lady in mind. I was grateful that lucky lady was going to be me. We got out plates and cutlery for the Thai takeout which he had picked up on his way home.

"I wish I'd met your sister, Bella," Edward said into the fridge. "She's so much a part of you. I would have loved to have known her."

He turned to face me, two bottles of beer in his hand.

"You will. Just indirectly." I smiled and touched his cheek, reaching up to kiss him and trying to stop myself at just one lip lock.

We had talked quite a bit about Charlotte and I was beginning to feel even closer to his family through the stories Edward told. They were definitely at a place where the memory of her was comfortable for them. He did explain to me that he always felt that knowing her death was coming had eased some of the pain. There was nothing left unspoken, even though it was awful for them to have to express the fears of what came next and have the guts to face it all with her.

Being amongst Rose's belongings for the purpose I had today got me thinking of a line in the book I had just finished. Reading had become something that helped, and the good books often gave you a new way of thinking of things. _"It's such a colossal effort not to be haunted by what's lost, but to be enchanted by what was." _

I couldn't afford to be anything but enchanted by Rose and the beautiful, incomparable spirit she was. It didn't fit with her character in life to be haunted by memories of her following her death.

Yes, I was very much enchanted. You couldn't not be. And I would remain so forevermore.


	43. Chapter 43

"'_Not enough,' he said, letting her hair slip through his fingers. 'If I kiss you all day, everyday, for the rest of my life, it won't be enough.'"_

― _Cassandra Clare, __City of Lost Souls_

**43**

Summer in Seattle was good to us. Especially given we could make use of Edward's pool, which was heated just enough to still be refreshing. We had a few weekend barbeques when my whole family invaded his house at Edward's insistence, and others when Carlisle and Esme visited. Those times were loud, happy and relaxed which was basically the ideal combination.

Some of my favorite moments were when it was just the two of us. I let myself into his house late one afternoon with my newly acquired key, knowing from his text he was out the back in a sun-lounger. I went to the bathroom and changed into the black string bikini I kept there. As I tiptoed through the house I could see his closed eyes and a medical journal flopped lazily against his chest. I grinned at the opportunity, already warmed by the sight of the 'v' of his waist where it disappeared into his low-slung board shorts.

As quietly as possible, I straddled the lounger and put my hands on the armrests, watching as he sensed my presence and opened his eyes. Like the gentleman he was, he noticed my face with pleasure first, before his eyes settled on my boobs. The gentlemanly nature could only go so far, and the slip could certainly be forgiven. They were right at eye-level after all.

"I wish this happened every time I opened my eyes." His face radiated with a boyish glee. A finger came up and pulled at the fabric, spilling a little more cleavage out for him.

I'd always thought of what we'd done so far as leaning more toward making love than fucking. I knew that Edward probably thought the same as I had – that "fucking" seemed like an act that went against the grain of grieving, whatever that may be. But it was yet another "normal" that I needed like air. I needed him to let loose with me, to remind me on a whole other level how alive I was. I wanted to give him a nudge in that direction, so he'd know it was okay.

I figured he would take me straddling him wearing next to nothing as somewhat of an invitation, but I thought I should make my intentions and desires as clear as possible. Miscommunication didn't get anyone anywhere. It didn't take long for our languid kisses to transform into making out like sex-starved teenagers. I took his moans and the pressure of his hands against my bare skin as my cue.

"You should fuck me, Edward. Let yourself go…fuck me like I know you want to. _I _want you to…" I breathed against his ear lobe.

A sound that seemed to be a garbled version of multiple expletives tumbled from him. He pulled back to look at me.

"You're a goddess, I swear," he said before pulling my face down to his.

With one hand forked in my hair at the nape of my neck, the other made easy work of each of the ties that were bowed loosely on my bikini. My boobs fell out of the fabric as his mouth found my nipples, and he pulled my bottoms away to discard them on the ground. His fingers instantly found their way between my legs, the sound of a large inhale against my chest resonated as he discovered how primed I already was for him.

I made quick work of his shorts, sliding my body down his legs so my mouth could make sure he was just as ready as I pushed them the rest of the way off with my foot. I swirled my tongue around his tip and drew his length in a few times, the power that came from pleasuring him making my anticipation even greater.

"Fucking you. I want to come from fucking you," he panted as he reached for me to come back up to him.

There were no more words as he pulled me onto his lap. The way he filled me so promptly was almost aggressive if it wasn't for the care littering his eyes as he succumbed to our desires. He started driving up into me, working my hips against him to increase the force. He shifted so that one hand was guiding me and the other was generously fondling my breasts, his mouth against a nipple. I felt wanton and fantastic, and so, so grateful for it.

Shifting his hands again, he held me to him as he carefully stood up and took a few steps over to his outdoor table. He partially rested my butt against it while supporting my weight with his arms to lever me up and down. I used my legs around his waist to grind against him further, and the closeness and control of the angle pushed me toward my release. His speed increased as he really started working himself and getting what he needed from me. I had taken so much from him; I'd give him anything he wanted. His legs quaked with his orgasm and his forehead fell against my shoulder. After a few moments, he found the ability and kissed me fervently, recognition of what we had just shared. When his legs stabilized, he carried me back to the lounger and sat down with me still around him.

"Consider it your boyfriendly right to take me like this when_ever_ you please," I whispered.

"The perks of this job are immense." He nuzzled against my neck. _Nuzzled_. Things felt so dreamy almost, maybe, finally. _Dreamy._

"_Job_? Dr. Cullen…I know you're fucking with me."

"Fucking with you…fucking you…" His voice was lazy as he tweaked my nipple lightly as I brought my arms up to defend myself.

"I've created a monster," I said stoically.

"Ugh, you're too beautiful sitting there all pouty. I can't fuck _with_ you when I just wanna _fuck_ you again."

"You've said 'fuck' more times in this conversation than you have in the entire time I've known you."

"You're right. Just because we let ourselves go a little doesn't mean I should let my verbal standards slip." He shook his head in disgust at himself.

"I'm with you for your verbal standards."

"Trouble, you are." He tapped my lip accusingly with a finger, eyeing my mouth up with intent. "Maybe more of a siren than a goddess." He lifted me off him and shifted as if to stand up. "Let's wash my mouth out with soap and re-clothe your little…sorcerous thing you've got going on here and go back to being grown-ups."

"I'm sure there's a balance?"

"There is. That's why I'm going to do this first…" He scooped me up with him and tossed me into the pool, following behind me to pop up conveniently in front of my naked chest.

Sometimes being a grown-up was completely overrated and genuinely horrible, but parts of it certainly had their perks.


	44. Chapter 44

"_You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always love you. That's where I'll be waiting."_

_- J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan_

**44**

It would be silly to pretend that everything was suddenly peaches and cream again. We could laugh and not feel guilty, socialize and not feel negligent, fuck as well as make love, eat and taste the flavors, listen to music and not cry. But we never forgot. At least once a month I would have one of my bad dreams, but they were by no means as shocking or vivid as they once were. I was learning to manage things better by _not_ managing them so much. You had to get things out – talk, cry, laugh, love, breathe – or it would become maddening.

What people said about grief was generally right, though it always sounded like less of a brush off of what you had been through or like less of a cliché when I replayed it via Edward's voice in my mind. _"It doesn't mean it goes away. Each day just gets a little easier to breathe, a little easier to stand up straighter, and a little easier to smile without feeling like you shouldn't." _I had held so much hope for that to be true when we had our first coffee together. I think it became true faster than it might have because I had him by my side every step of the way. I was indebted to him for knowing when to stand that little bit closer and when to step behind me to let me take a step without him. He was always there in some form either way.

Edward wasn't a consolation prize. It wasn't a trade off or a matter of "it's okay they're gone 'cause now I have Edward." I didn't fill the gap that had been left by my sister by becoming Edward's girlfriend. What happened with us was a force of its own. We both had this sense that we would have found each other somehow, somewhere in the city in which we shared so many favorite places and activities, or perhaps even through Jasper. I no longer considered it to be bad timing that he'd met me at my lowest. Now we had so many highs to share together, and they would be so much more welcome and treasured given what we knew.

It had become apparent that Edward was very good at storing away the little things I mentioned for future use. A week before my birthday we were grabbing a bite to eat for lunch near the UW campus. I had started tutoring a few hours a week to supplement my income while I was working on some potential writing projects. He passed me an envelope across the table as I was finishing off my coffee.

"I thought you might prefer a little prior notice," he said cryptically.

I questioned what he meant with confused eyes and a quirked brow.

"Just open it, baby." He had a happy, secretive smile.

I opened the black envelope and pulled out a card. Stapled inside was a folded page. _Swan/Isabella Marie 20SEP SEA HNL_

"Oh man, this is an e-ticket."

"You said to save my leave for something fun like a vacation." His face was everything…content, sneaky, happy, a touch of sun warming him through the window.

"HNL – Honolulu?" I had a shit-eating, über-excited grin at that point. "I've always wanted to go."

"Me too. I figured why wait?"

"This is perfect, Edward. Too much, but perfect nonetheless."

I stood up and moved around the table to sit in his lap. Our lips met as I wrapped my arms around his neck, wondering once again how we had got to this place, this moment. It sure as hell wasn't without its trials and heartaches, so I wasn't going to question when good things came my way. It wasn't all rainbows and love songs, but we sure as hell deserved them on the days that it was.

That year brought a lot of firsts from all ends of the spectrum.

First trip to Hawaii.

First time making love on a beach.

First dream job.

First celebration of Rose's birthday without her there.

First year without the obligatory attempt to contact Renee for her birthday and Christmas.

First Christmas without Rose's infamous fruit cake.

First Christmas without Rose.

First true grief.

First true love.

How could I call it the worst year of my life when I had that last thing on the list? Saddest year? Yes. But it held the promise of the happiest years ahead. I knew they'd be different, and missing a person or two, but if I focused on that, I'd only get dragged further down. Most challenging year? Yes. But wasn't it challenge that made you stronger? Who knew the answer to that for me at this point, but I knew that I would carry the good memories and learn how to cope with and carry the bad. The only way to go from here was up.


	45. Chapter 45

"_These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections -sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent - that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life."_

― _Alice Sebold, __The Lovely Bones_

**45**

As I continued to think back, I guess the hardest concept for me to make sense of in the year that my sister died wasn't the mere fact that she was gone. It was the question of how a world in which she could be taken away from me so horrifically could be the same world that could endow me with Edward Cullen within the span of a few short months? Was that the deal – that in order to have one miraculous thing, you had to lose something else? But then I thought surely not, because surely it should only cost one beautiful life for me to have a happy future, so where did losing a second person come into all that? And what about Alice, who had Jasper and her pregnant belly, but lost Rose and Renee and another unborn child?

By January, I'd found a new place though. A place where I could revel in the happiness of Edward and not feel any heaviness of Rose. She was joy and light and memory. I don't have to be the girl whose sister died, the woman whose mother was shot. I'd worked out how to just be Bella Swan again: no explanatory sentence about me after my name required. That doesn't mean I don't carry them with me. It just means that I don't carry them around me like a veil of death; they burst out of me in the gift of getting to live my life; in being able to be proud of Rose when Ben succeeds, because even though she's not there, he's all her; in being able to watch Alice become a wonderful mother to her own child despite her fears; in being able to spend time with my family and Edward's family doing everything or simply nothing, enjoying each other's company.

"Edward? What's this?" I asked across the bedroom. I was standing in my underwear about to pull a top out of the chest of drawers and get dressed to meet his parents for brunch.

"What's what, gorgeous?"

"This. In the box you gave me." I was still staring at it where it sat in front of me on the wooden surface of the drawers. It was always there as a reminder but today there was something different. The fluttering of nerves and anxiousness in my stomach was finally of a different kind – the good kind, not the impending doom kind.

"Oh, that," he said, so casually. "It's something I want you to have, when you're ready. I thought that was a good place to keep it safe."

I pulled my eyes away from the heart-shaped box, and the large princess diamond that had me transfixed, to look at the man who had my heart transfixed. Fresh from the shower, he had one charcoal grey towel wrapped around his hips and was rubbing excess water from his hair with another.

"What if I am ready? What happens then?" My voice was barely a whisper.

He swallowed and stopped toweling his hair.

"I know you're a little scared. I know your fears of life and death and everything in between. And I've also seen you overcome those and start living again as if they don't matter. So I _know_ you're ready. And if my job and my time with you have taught me anything, it's that life is horribly short. Whether you leave it at five, thirty-five, or eighty-five, it's never going to be long enough with those that you love. When I know so clearly what I want and need, and that I want and need it for the rest of my life, then I'm not going to waste a single second more being without it."

He closed the distance between us and stood in front of me.

"I want and need _you_, Bella Swan. There might not be rhyme or reason to it in your mind, but that's because love can't really be defined that simply. We've learned that together. I just _know_. I know it with every tiny part of me. I _love_ you. And that love makes me want and need you to be my wife with all of my being. So marry me, Bella. Marry me?"

There was this part of me that wanted to ask a hundred questions including "Are you fucking serious right now?" and "Are you sure you're sure?" But I knew the answers to all of those. The other part of me was utterly speechless and couldn't find a way to form mouth movements into spoken words. My heart knew how though. It knew not to wait a second longer without giving him the answer we both deserved.

"Yes. Yes! So very much yes –" He shut me up by scooping me up and kissing me with fervor. I practically climbed him the rest of the way to wrap my legs around his waist, feeling giddy and truly weightless for the first time in a long time.

There was one more gift of life that the loss of the previous year allowed to flourish more intensely for me. The gift of being able to marry a man who loves me more than anything in the world and about whom I feel the same.

This was happiness.

It still existed.

And everything felt like it was going to be okay.


	46. Chapter 46

"_My sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy."_

― _Jandy Nelson, __The Sky Is Everywhere_

**46**

On the eve of the one-year anniversary of my sister's death, I signed a publishing deal for my first book. It turned out that the words I had typed in the thick of the night that I couldn't remember the details of were actually okay. They were my navigation through loss, grief, family, and love. When I read back over the pages in a moment of clarity, I decided to keep going with it. I had no intention of anyone else ever reading it. But with time, I felt that it spoke so much about us that I wanted to share it with Alice, so that I could expose parts of me to her that I couldn't speak aloud as effectively. I never thought it would be appropriate to share beyond that, until Alice told me it was worth pursuing. She thought that at the very least it might help other people, or in the very least be provocative in making them question or change.

I didn't want my family members stripped bare for the world to see, so I worked with an editor to make it appear to be a work of fiction, changed the names and signed the contract under a penname. The one name I didn't change was Rose's. I needed it to still have that connection for it to be real for me and not a superficial venture off the back of my experiences. The publisher also wanted to keep the title. _Dear Rose._ It didn't concern me what it would lead to; it was simply a cathartic experience to finally have my heart down on paper and to be willing to expose that to whoever picked it up.

We marked her anniversary with a day filled with all of her favorite things. We wore bright colors, played loud music, drank expensive wines, ate ridiculous amounts of food and followed it down with whoopee pies and meringues filled with cream. Ben learned to get his groove on dancing in the living room with Jasper before it was way past his bedtime. The day wasn't forced or overdone; it just felt natural and right. We knew that each year would be different. Some a simple dinner, others a quiet visit alone to sit beside her grave stone and feel even closer to her to have a chat. But I would never let it just pass us by. We would mark the day she left the world with only memories behind her with as much happiness and regard as the day she came into it.

The family was blessed with new life when Alice and Jasper welcomed their son Samuel on April second. I don't think any of us were prepared for how momentous it felt to have reached that day. Especially not Alice, whose tears of joy seemed to carry so much more in them as they streamed down her cheeks when she looked at me over the top of her brand new son lying on her chest. The immediate love I felt for my second nephew assured me that, no matter how big the family grew, or how much loss I had to carry, the heart was big enough and strong enough for all of it.

Continuing our "why wait" philosophy, that May I became Mrs. Edward Cullen. It was a day in which I really, really felt my sister's absence – and yes, admittedly more so than my mom's. I missed her complaining that red wasn't her color, payback for our initial hesitation over her choice of yellow bridesmaid dresses all those years ago. I missed her joyful smile when Ben walked somewhat haphazardly up the aisle as our ring bearer in his miniature suit. I missed her when she should have been dancing around the reception dinner with her husband. I missed her telling me that her baby sister looked beautiful and that I couldn't have said yes to a better man. She would have laughed so much at Emmett as emcee. His humor had always been one of the things that drew her to him, and one of the things I had worried she'd taken with her when she died. I was so grateful to see that still alive in my brother-in-law.

Rose's and Alice's wedding days had actually been two of those rare moments where Renee had seemed more mom-like. While some of it had been a little trite, for the most part, she had smiled, cried, and said the right things at the appropriate times. Because of the age I was when she left us, my relationship had always had more tenuous connections than what she had with my sisters. Still, I liked to imagine that the awkwardness wouldn't have been so present for that day, and she'd say the things I would hope to hear from her to me as she had to them. If that was a dream only allowed to me by her absence, then I would take it. It wasn't like I could imagine it to be any other way.

Out of all of the emotion and wonderful moments from that day, there was one thing I would remember most. As I stepped into the aisle between our family and friends gathered in the garden of the Cullens' home in Forks, my most amazing dad squeezed my arm and gave me a reassuring wink that this moment was going to be great. And when I looked up ahead to what awaited me, it was. I saw the man who would stand by me as I took every step from there on out. And when he graced me with the most beautiful smile, his green eyes glistening with the happiest of tears, I knew that it wasn't the absences I would remember, it was him.


	47. Chapter 47

**My beta Lisa has been amazing once again. She makes sure my fuck-ups have hyphens in them and I cherish her for it, as well as her general unfailing support. **

**This story has drawn some really amazing reviews out of people, and I loved how much you understood the characters. Thank you to those who shared their own stories or thoughts and for making me so happy with each alert that popped into my box. I'd love to get to know you further so please find me on twitter (landdownunda) so we can chat. **

**It's been a cathartic experience. Hug your mothers and sisters, folks. Even if they do your head in…**

**Thanks again lovelies. Take care and see you around in the fandom world.**

**Em x**

**-x-x-x-**

"_Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape."_

_- __Charles Dickens, Great Expectations_

-x-x-x-

_Dear Rose,_

_I feel like you probably know, but our first baby was born this week. Four days ago…a perfect little girl with ten fingers, ten toes, blue eyes and a shock of dark hair. I guess her eyes will turn green like her mommy and daddy's. I hope she has Edward's smile and his beautiful heart. No doubt she'll get the rotund Swan butt – we all had Grandma to thank for that one. At the moment she's just soft, squishy, delicious, sleeping baby. We named her Ava Rose. You'll always be the only Rose I ever think of, so I wanted to honor you rather than replace your image with that of my child. If she grows up to be anything like my big sisters, then I'll be a very happy mom._

_Edward wants to fill our house with little Cullens, and so far I agree. If Ava is as good as Ben was, I'll be all for it. He's so perfect with her when he visits us with Emmett. He strokes her head just like we do to his, the way you used to do to me. He's still coming to me for one day a week. Emmett drops him off on his way to work and collects him in the evening. I wish he was here every day, but he needs to be with his daddy. He's doing an inspiring job, Rose. As you knew he would. He's patient and caring, generous, loving, and fun. We're so proud of the way he survived. I know it's not easy for him, but he'll be good. I'm sure of it._

_I miss you every day. Which is a horrible understatement, but how do I really describe it? Sometimes an errant tear will slip out, but usually it's for a happy memory more than for the pain of your absence. We managed to find a semblance of peace. Peace that you're with us. Peace that we can talk about you and remember you freely. Peace that one day I'll see you again. _

_But not any time soon._

_I have a hell of a lot of living to do before then._

_I love you, angel._

_Yours always,_

_Bella x_

**-x-x-x-**


End file.
